>>7626006>studied lots of this during my PhD in math. I know a little bit of coding tooThere it sounds like you haven't even been through freshman year at undergrad.
"hacking" is very romanticized by people. It's not magic, and you can barely do anything without getting into trouble unless you work for some government or live in Russia. Unless you want to work for the government or learn just to be able to defend yourself (whitehat - become a penetester or devops), just don't even bother, you're not going to do anything "fun."
Your supposed knowledge of cryptography would help to some extent because knowing the protocols help. But it's more about finding weaknesses in software and knowing how to exploit them.
It's hard to suggest place to start because most books will be outdated. Black Hat Python might be a good book. Also, download Kali Linux and some manuals and learn the tools it comes with. Those are the kinds of tools you might use if you pursue work in security as a penetester or something of the sort.
