There are two aspects that you recognize as an advanced programmer. The first aspect is the depth of understanding the code. This is achieved by reading books, documentation, source code of the modules used. The second aspect is project support skills. They are acquired with experience working on production systems.

Programming is a craft, so only with perseverance honing your skills can you become a programmer? It is crucial not only to read, to tighten the theoretical base regularly but also to practice continually. It is not easy, sometimes very tedious, but more desire and persistence are needed.

Practice is extremely important. Yes, there are gifted specialists for whom everything is easy by itself, but there are not many of them. The solution is to continually experiment, try something new, do pet-projects, be active, and feel free to ask.

Why is programming important in cybersecurity?

Programming skills from leading specialists are not something in short supply. They will definitely come to you. It all depends on the number of tested solutions, information, knowledge that you receive in a unit of time. The harder you practice, the sooner and more skills you can acquire. Programming is not only a process, but, first of all, a result. There are always more solutions to a single problem. Do not get carried away with the process unnecessarily.

Understanding computer vulnerabilities are an unavoidable barrier when considering cybersecurity. Programming languages are used very frequently in IT security. Ethical hackers use these to write small scripts and exploits. It can make work much easier to automate smaller operations and processes through scripts.

Also, having the right programming language can help you develop a deep understanding of computers and ethical hacking. For example, suppose the ethical hacker wants to understand how an application works in detail. In that case, he must be able to reverse engineer it and read the machine instructions behind the program. In other cases, they prefer to use programming languages like Python. The areas of application of programming languages can also overlap very strongly.

Programming Languages in Web Security

Programming languages such as PHP, HTML, and JavaScript are used in web security. The programming languages mentioned differ significantly in their intended use but are useful, for example, for understanding web applications.

Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is the major language behind websites on the World Wide Web. It is important to know HTML because without it becomes very difficult to analyze websites or to plan attacks for them.

PHP is a server-side scripting language widely used for the dynamic content creation of websites and web applications. Many websites use PHP e.g. for guest books, discussion forums, or form processing. Wrong use of the scripting language creates exploitable vulnerabilities such as buffer XSS,  overflows, and error handling vulnerabilities.

JavaScript is a scripting language for dynamic content material and is completed on the purchaser side. Incorrect use of the language can, for example, lead to Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) assaults on the website.

Structured Query Language (SQL) is a database language used to define and query relational databases. SQL is more likely to be used in the back end of a website.

If, for example, user names of forum members are saved, they are stored in a database. Incorrect use of PHP and SQL creates a dangerous vulnerability for SQL injections.