Juggling interest.
Table of Contents
Happy New Year!
Best wishes to all! We have entered into a new year which definitely sounds like the date of a dystopian sci-fi hellscape ('in the year 2025, there is only war...'). Thankfully, the ending of 2024 and the beginning of this year were quite peaceful for me. Just like this website! All kidding aside, I am happy to be back in the saddle, well rested and rejuvenated, ready to take on the world 🔥.
Keeping busy
So, what have I been doing for the past few months? Well, it's been quite a mess. For the better part of last year, I have managed to focus my selfstudy, both in my work and my personal time, mainly on:
- Malware analysis and development (C, C++)
- Web app development (Python)
However, due to a number of changes in my work, I had to refocus and change gears quite drastically. To summarize, I:
- Prepared for and joined an ethical hacking event, HALON2024. To prepare, I:
- Took a web application pentesting course (the excellent Taggart Institute's Practical Web Application Security and Testing)
- Read a book on the subject (the classic Web Application Hacker's Handbook).
- Got more involved in (Azure) cloud architecture and (operational) security and:
- learned about cloud security benchmarks and best practices like the Azure security benchmark, the Cloud Adoption Framework, etc.
- took the courses Microsoft Security Operations Analyst, Microsoft Azure Administrator and Microsoft Azure Fundamentals
- Got the AZ-900 Microsoft Certified: Azure Fundamentals (more on the way)
- Refocused on studying for the Blue Team Level 2, BTL2, certification exam:
- Doing the suggested BlueTeamLabsOnline-labs and investigations (5 challenges & 4 investigations so far)