Watch and learn with our pick of the 14 best YouTube channels to follow if you’re serious about cyber security

Cyber security is constantly evolving, and to stay ahead of the black hat hackers, you need to stay up to date. We find the best way is to listen to some of the experts – on both sides of the divide – not just telling you what’s going on but showing you too.  

More and more professionals are turning to video-based content. Cyber security has always been an opaque, semi-informal field, so if you want to follow the latest trends, intelligence and training, we reckon you should go straight to the source. YouTube!

Having scoured the internet and watched hundreds of hours of smart (as well as some pretty damn surreal) footage, we’ve compiled a list of the best people to subscribe to on YouTube. Because we’re nice like that.

The Infosec Institute

https://www.youtube.com/c/InfoSecInstitute

Infosec describes its mission as putting people at the centre of cybersecurity’. The channel helps IT and security professionals advance their careers with skills development and certifications while empowering all employees with security awareness and phishing training to stay cyber safe at work and home.

More than 70% of the Fortune 500 have relied on Infosec Skills to develop their security talent, and more than 5 million learners worldwide are more cyber-resilient from Infosec IQ’s security awareness training. The lessons themselves are clear, in-depth, while not too hard to follow for those people new to cyber security. If you want to know where to start, start here.

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David Bombal

https://www.youtube.com/c/DavidBombal

David Bombal is a funny, engaging speaker who covers varied subjects including Linux, Python, ethical hacking, networking, CCNA, virtualization and more. The subject matter is heavy and detailed, but there’s a ton here to learn.

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Infosec Live

https://www.youtube.com/c/infoseclive

Infosec Live’s channel’s biggest feature is Live Streams every week (as well as the usual interviews, tutorials and walkthroughs) – perfect if you have a burning question that’s too specific to find an answer for in the regular videos. You can also join their free online community at https://www.info-sec.live if you need access to mentors, learning pathways and much more.

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Security Onion

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNBFTyYCdjT5hnm7uW25vGQ

If you want to know more about threat hunting, then peel away a few layers on this channel. Run by Security Onion Solutions, this is a free and open source platform for threat hunting, network security monitoring, and log management. Security Onion includes best-of-breed open source tools such as Suricata, Zeek, Wazuh, the Elastic Stack, among many others.

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The CyberWire

https://www.youtube.com/c/Thecyberwire

If you need to stay abreast of the latest news about software vulnerabilities, exploits, attacks and breaches, then subscribe to The CyberWire. It’s a free, community-driven cyber security news service that produces a daily digest of the critical news happening across the global cyber security domain.

Best of all, The CyberWire is ad-free and available both as a daily email and on its website – so if you don’t have the time or toolkit to watch YouTube videos at your desk you can still catch up with the latest news over a first morning coffee.

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The Cyber Chronicle

https://www.youtube.com/c/TheCyberChronicle

The Cyber Chronicle says it’s the fastest growing channel on Youtube for cyber security, and you can see why when you watch one of their latest vidcasts. Awarded one of the top ten best cyber security podcasts by Feedspot, The Cyber Chronicle is a weekly video blog of the most shared articles on cyber security across the internet. Basically they scrub the web – including LinkedIn and YouTube – for cyber security stories so you don't have to.

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Introduction to Cryptography by Cristof Paar

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1usFRN4LCMcfIV7UjHNuQg

Cryptography is an important component of cyber security, so having at least a grasp of it can be important for a number of reasons. And one of the best ways to do that is to go back to school – virtually, at least. Armed with an old-fashioned chalkboard, Cristof Paar a series of lectures to give you a comprehensive introduction to modern applied crypto.

Only school-level maths is required to follow the lectures and you don’t typically need anything but your brain to follow along – although there is also a companion textbook called "Understanding Cryptography" by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl. You can find it here:  www.crypto-textbook.com

The videos show the two-semester introductory courses for our B.Sc. and the M.Sc. IT security students.

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Cloud Security Podcast

https://www.youtube.com/c/CloudSecurityPodcast

As more and more companies migrate to cloud-based infrastructure, services, and resources, security teams need to get to grips with Cloud Security. That makes it one of the fastest-growing areas of cyber security training – but one of the least understood.

To rectify that the Cloud Security Podcast is a community-first Weekly video podcast that features interviews with CyberSecurity Leaders and Cloud Security Practitioners from around the world to help you learn How to and What's HOT in Cloud Security.

Podcast host Ashish is a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and has worked a Security Architect, SOC Manager, Cloud Security Engineer, and Identity and Access Management Consultant, so he knows what he’s talking about. The jargon can be a little much, but he really knows his stuff.

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Professor Messer

https://www.youtube.com/c/professormesser

Professor Messer is the Internet's most comprehensive choice for CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, and other IT certifications. All of Professor Messer's certification videos are posted online, and you can watch every minute of every video on YouTube, for free. Crazy.

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Malware Analysis for Hedgehogs

https://www.youtube.com/c/MalwareAnalysisForHedgehogs

We can’t exclude MAH – we love a hedgehog too. But also because the prickly one’s subject matter – digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) and Malware Analysis – continues to be the bread and butter of the cyber security space. We’ve gathered a list of some great cybersecurity YouTube channels that cover the topics of DFIR and Malware Analysis.

Definitely not just for hedgehogs.

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John Hammond

https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnHammond010

Possibly the most popular vlogger about cyber security, and owner of a perfectly trimmed ginger beard, John Hammond is a must-follow when it comes to all things cyber. Now a researcher for the Threat Operations team at Huntress, Hammond also worked previously as a Department of Defense Cyber Training Academy instructor, he taught the Cyber Threat Emulation course, educating both civilian and military members on offensive Python, PowerShell, other scripting languages and the adversarial mindset.

He has developed training material and information security challenges for events such as PicoCTF and competitions at DEFCON US. John speaks at security conferences such as BsidesNoVA, to students at colleges such as the US Naval Academy, and other online events including the SANS Holiday Hack Challenge/KringleCon.

John currently holds the following certifications: Security+, CEH, LFS, eJPT, eCPPT, PNPT, PCAP, OSWP, OSCP, OSCE, OSWE, OSEP, and OSED (OSCE(3)).

So, yeah. He knows his stuff – and presents it in a fun, simple, engaging way. You can also follow John on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhammond010/

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OWASP Foundation

https://www.youtube.com/c/OWASPGLOBAL

The Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) is a 501(c)(3) worldwide not-for-profit charitable organization focused on improving the security of software. It says its mission is to ‘make software security visible, so that individuals and organizations worldwide can make informed decisions about true software security risks’.

Everyone is free to participate in OWASP and all of its materials are available under a free and open software license.

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STÖK

https://www.youtube.com/c/STOKfredrik

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LiveOverflow

https://www.youtube.com/c/LiveOverflow

And in the other corner… Both Fredrik Stok and Live Overflow are two of the most prominent ‘white hat’ hackers on the internet. Their videos give a fair summary of what the other side sees in terms of potential exploits and flaws in cyber security systems and regularly take part in in hacking competitions. They’re both smart, engaging speakers and it’s a bit of a relief to have them on our side, to be honest.

And that’s our pick of the 14 best channels. Think we missed some out? Want to give your own channel a shoutout? Let us know here and we’ll check it out.

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