Learning Woes – Build A Security Ninja

Informational, Learning Woes, What I've Used

Broke the Microsoft Curse

Posted on May 14, 2022May 14, 2022 by Steph

Or Passing AZ-900

Last Friday I sat for an passed Microsoft’s Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) certification test. During my hiatus I had sat for an failed Microsoft’s Security Analyst (SC-200) test.

To be honest I really wasn’t prepared for SC-200. I breezed through the Microsoft Learn coursework and didn’t really study the material. Although I had hands-on with their security tools I’d never used Kusto Query Language. I kinda wanted a feel for how Microsoft tests were comparatively speaking.

Failing SC-200 wasn’t a big hit because I was aware of my shortcomings.

Still to me, Microsoft Cert Tests are trickier and have section blocks that limited the ability to go back and change answers, which I wasn’t prepared for the first time taking one of their exams, but was ready for taking the Fundamental exam.

This is exam is basically theoretical and based on understanding Azure on a high level and the using the cloud as a whole.

I would recommend using the following to test prep:

Microsoft Learn for AZ-900 (free Microsoft course)
Jim Cheshire book (pictured below)
I microsoft also has ‘Virtual Training Days’ which can help.

Jim Cheshire – “Microsoft Azure Fundamentals Exam Ref AZ-900”

Now to get more hands on with Azure!!

Burnout, Covid, Hiatus, Learning Woes

Burnout or When Burning the Candle at Both Ends goes Wrong…

Posted on April 9, 2022April 9, 2022 by Steph

Burnout: Burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and often physical exhaustion brought on by prolonged or repeated stress. -Psychology Today

So, like I said in my last post I accomplished a great deal next year, but I think overall it cost me alot as well. I was able to pass Cloud+, Pentest+, CYSA+, and Splunk Certified User. I also completed my Master’s degree. I Competed in 2 National Cyber League CTFs and lead one of my school’s teams each time. I also had to deal with the demands at work that kind of intensified with co-workers coming and going.

By November I really just felt tired.

I basically didn’t want to do anything at least career related and in some ways not even big life stuff. So, because I know myself well enough I took December 2021-January 2022 off. I still worked, but I wasn’t like actively trying to like improve myself.

I didn’t want a little burnout to end up like:

Or Worse:

https://www.pexels.com/@Diego-Sanchez-44059283

I didn’t try to study for any new certs, didn’t try to find any challenging ctfs, didn’t take anymore classes, nothing. I just sailed for a bit instead of striving and trying to compensate for starting later than others or being newer to the field. I stopped telling myself I didn’t belong in the conversation or at the table because I just got here and needed to prove something and I just relaxed.

It’s hard to just relax and it’s super hard to silence the voices in your head telling you that you’re not as good or even the voices outside that say the same, but it’s important that we don’t let them overwhelm you and especially don’t let them talk over the voices of confidence.

Learning Woes

Notes from Home

Posted on June 13, 2020 by Steph

Or how to Get Back on Track when you Slack

The stay at home orders did absolutely nothing to help me adhere to deadlines and timelines. If anything the amount of time I had available to “do more” made me do less than what I had been.

I left 1 job near the beginning of the pandemic due to numerous factors, but then in the middle of starting the next position (never leave a job without another lined up) the process was held up and I was basically not working for 3 weeks. The uncertainty wrecked my mental state–that’s not an excuse, it’s a fact–I was so worried that something terrible would happen and I would be out of work for some length of time that I did basically nothing but fret and pace.

That schedule I made for all the stuff I wanted to learn? FORGOTTEN.
Linux+? BOOK UNOPENED.
CYSA+ Beta. FAILED. (That was a hit because it was soooo close and another setback!)
Splunk. CAST ASIDE.

I mean my outline was completely off track and honestly it hasn’t gotten back on track until very recently.

The new job is excellent and more in line with what I want to do.
A friend and I made a pact to retake CYSA+ 001 before it is retired
I’m back on the Linux train and have scheduled the test for later to compensate my lapse, plus I mentally lessened the stress on this one
Picked back up with Splunk, but also put a slowdown on this

How?

Honestly, if there is something outside of yourself affecting your life that is beyond your control there’s not a lot you can do. You fix the things you can and try to work through the ones you can’t.

I know that I pile a lot on my plate, but I don’t really know another way to be myself, but to do so, but I also know that I just have to keep chipping away at these goals. Goals are a good thing to have, but it is also important not to kill yourself when they aren’t accomplished, but rather readjust and go back to the proverbial “drawing board”. This is me back at the drawing board. With this new position I took like 2 steps forward and now I just want to keep that up; a couple of steps at a time.

Informational, Learning Woes

Learning in Place

Posted on April 7, 2020April 13, 2020 by Steph

(if you’re so inclined….)

This is not going to be one of those post telling anyone to maximize productivity during the Pandemic. We don’t do that.

What this is is a running list of tech and cybersecurity geared learning opportunities that are currently having specials during the COVID-19 pandemic so that anyone that sees this and wants to pass it along or take advantage can.

Resources

Continue reading →

Learning Woes, Using

Mosse-Institute

Posted on March 22, 2020March 22, 2020 by Steph

or Initial Thoughts on My First Internship, Remotely…

I found out about Mosse Institute from a link on the WiCYS Facebook page. The link touted a “Remote Internship” and I’m always one looking for a way to pad my resume and get more hands on experience so I signed up.

So far the amount of tasks seems massive and it looks like it covers a good bit of subjects. The internship takes accountability for completing these task by having the intern record their solutions.

“Most people miss Opportunity because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”
Thomas A. Edison

The downside at least for myself is finding the time and quiet place to do the tasks (The videos are not to contain sound).

I’ve made a commitment to completing at least 1/3 by the end of the year, but I’m really aiming for all.

*Sorry for the lateness of this post, this week has been hectic to say the least…

CTF, Labs, Learning Woes

Women United over CTF 2.0

Posted on March 5, 2020March 3, 2020 by Steph

Reverse Engineering – First Try

For me this experience was an epic failure, but that’s most definitely because I know absolutely nothing about Reverse Engineering. My frustrations were enhanced by the fact that my entry key was buried in my spam/trash folder and I didn’t think to look in there until an hour before the CTF was scheduled to end. In all honesty this wasn’t my first time signing up for this CTF, but during 1.0 I had to work so only got the bonus membership to Escalate afterwards and never got to touch the platform.

As I stated I know nothing about Reverse Engineering…well, I wouldn’t say nothing. I know the names of some of the tools, namely Ghidra and BinaryNinja, but I’ve never used either. |

I’m trying to leave myself completely open to learning though, which also means participating in as many CTFs as I can schedule. This is a subplot plan that has me trying to get the hands-on experience from anywhere. So, knowing nothing I signed up for this one.

As I state above the problems were mostly caused by me and my email address. I got a little hands-on usage of Binary Ninja to complete simple tasks, but I would have needed way longer than an hour to get anywhere with the medium and hard tasks. I think maybe in the hour I was able to score something like 72 points.

The pro of doing this is that I realized that somethings aren’t that difficult to do when in comes to reverse engineering. I mean this doesn’t make me any sort of expert, nor would I put this on my resume (other than to demonstrate my willingness to learn new tools). I think that it did make me interested in knowing more about reverse engineering. I would like for when 3.0 comes around I score at least 100 points (that was actually my lofty goal this time). The gist is that I’m not going to just stop participating because right now I’m not as knowledgeable.

Sponsors:

Some Reverse Engineering Tools

Ghidra
Binary Ninja
IDA Pro
Radare2
Scylla

Some Reverse Engineering Books

Reverse Engineering For Beginners by Dennis Yurichev
The IDA Pro Book by Chris Eagle
Hacking the Xbox by Andrew “Bunny” Huang
Practical Malware Analysis by Michael Sikorski and Andrew Honig

Flashback Friday, Learning Woes

Flashback Friday 02/2020

Posted on February 29, 2020February 29, 2020 by Steph

200 Hundred Days of Code

So, we talked about how structure and time are all warped in my head. Flashback to the #100DaysOfCode Challenge.

#100DaysOfCode is a challenge that designing to help people create a habit of coding on a daily basis. The thought is that by committing and posting daily on the things one did to further their coding goals the community works to hold each other accountable for fulfilling this commitment and meeting our personal goals.

I completed the challenge twice. Once, I was just moving towards doing a daily accountability and the second I focused on Javascript. The end result is that I completed the challenges , but it didn’t improve my habits. If nothing else having to complete it because I’d made a commitment kind of burned me out and at some points frustrated me to no end. I think for some it would create a habit and maybe if I had chosen a project to work on that I was passionate about it would have made it fun for me, but I didn’t and didn’t reflect enough about what I wanted and who I am to make a more informed choice before committing. If I was to do the challenge today I would probably concentrated on python for hackers/pentesters and writing scripts, because I think that would keep me interested, but I have a little too much on my plate currently to make that kind of commitment.

Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex.
Norman Vincent Peale

def greet(name):
    print ('Hello', name)

greet('Jack')
greet('Jill')
greet('Bob')

I would recommend anyone to take up this challenge if they wanted to find a way to build habits. If you look on the site linked below it will show you that #100DaysOf_ can build habits in any number of subjects. I would just interject that if this is the choice to find something that is challenging and interesting enough to make you want to complete the challenge, not because it is a challenge, but because the project makes you passionate.

#100DaysofCode Site

Learning Woes

Time is the Enemy…

Posted on February 25, 2020February 23, 2020 by Steph

Don’t let Time Management be Your Greatest Foe…

I written about my troubles with time over and over, it’s a reoccurring theme. Time shouldn’t be one’s enemy, but sometimes it does feel like it is. I know that I have a strong procrastination streak and thus far it hasn’t hurt me,but I want to be better with my time, even if it was just to make myself feel a bit more organized.

I also believe that this is a personal concept. Time, can feel like a weight for some and for others making schedules and being on top of their time management can feel cathartic. For me, it’s a tad bit more anxiety-filling. Bullet notebooks and super strict schedules make me itch. I don’t think “habit-tracking” is for me.

Don’t get me wrong, I do work better when I know things are due and I’m responsible, but not when that makes these things micromanage my time and effort. I like knowing there is a date and then finishing whatever, whenever I’m ready by that date. I cannot do the daily scheduled work, it just makes things tedious and increases the pressure I already put on myself.

Which is why I came up with a nice little Gantt Chart for the 5 main things that I want to learn for the first halfish of this year. I only included things that I can find a certification for to judge my progress by. I only have the certification exam scheduled for Linux+ though; I bought that last year and have a hard deadline of September to take this exam, though I scheduled to take it Mid-July.

I do sometime wonder if the lack of a coherent tracking system is somehow holding me back from like “my full potential”. Other times I think that this works; the way I work works for me. It will not work for everyone or most, but it works for me. Besides, do I really need one more thing to try to learn and stress over?

Flashback Friday, Learning Woes

Python, I Can’t Quit You….

Posted on February 6, 2020March 24, 2020 by Steph

Hisss, Hisssss, Hisssssss.

I love Python. I admit, that when learning programming Python was not my first language. I started with web development, so I started with JavaScript after getting the hang of HTML5 and CSS3. I don’t hate JS, I just find the syntax structure more taxing in JavaScript. I at first believed that JavaScript was impossible, but really I have trouble with breaking down complex problems more due to wanting to jump right in then in not understanding how to do so–but this is a whole other post and we’re talking about Python!
No matter how far I go in my studies, I keep coming back to wanting to have a grasp on the Python language. I consider myself a Python enthusiast.
I think it’s the similarity to spoken/written language that makes this language appeal the most to me. There are numerous sources that recommend beginners start with Python as a programming language and I support this assertion, unless of course the goal is front-end web development, then of course one might want to do JavaScript.
I want to know enough about both aspects to be considered mildly dangerous and capable of utilizing either when necessary.
So, as I prep out a plan to re-familiarize myself with not only programming, but Python, I realize I really do love this language. I just need to get over the belief that setbacks are permanent. I’m not going to be the best at everything and it all isn’t going to come easy, that was how Programming hit me years ago and I know I got frustrated by feeling like I wasn’t progressing or at least not quickly enough, but hanging out in online programming groups I realized that we’re all googling out way to success, most of us aren’t wunderkind, and imposter syndrome is a daily struggle, but if it interests you, like really interests you probably pretty much going to always find a way back to doing it.

print("Hello, World!")

Some Python Helpful Links:

xkcd webcomic – https://xkcd.com/353/

# Python program to check if  
# given number is prime or not 
  
num = 11
  
# If given number is greater than 1 
if num > 1: 
      
   # Iterate from 2 to n / 2  
   for i in range(2, num//2): 
         
       # If num is divisible by any number between  
       # 2 and n / 2, it is not prime  
       if (num % i) == 0: 
           print(num, "is not a prime number") 
           break
   else: 
       print(num, "is a prime number") 
  
else: 
   print(num, "is not a prime number")

Learning Woes

The Squeeze of trying to Learn, Everything…

Posted on January 28, 2020January 26, 2020 by Steph

unsplash-logoDavid Travis

List of Things I Want to Learn

Basic Automation
Intermediate Python
Cryptography
Splunk Query Language
Linux (Enough to pass the Linux+ XK0-004)
Basic Ruby/Kotlin/Rust
Simple Game Development
Basic Web Development
Algorithms/Data Structures
Basic Cloud Computing
Etc, Etc, Etc…

I know that there is no point in which in this field you will have learned everything. There is no end point in Information Technology, Cybersecurity, Programming. There are constant innovations and learning is pretty much lifelong.
That being said sometimes it can be a little overwhelming when you think about all of the things that interest you. I know that there are numerous things that I want to get some hands on experience with and sometimes I get anxiety about not doing enough towards learning these things. This is probably one of the reasons that I have a plethora books on all the subjects that interest me so that I can get to them when I have the time.
I think maybe the most important two things is to keep track of the items that interest you and also not stress the timeline so much, try to make a general goal/outline of steps to take in order to accomplish learning the things that interest you.

“Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own.”
-Bruce Lee