Tag: Productivity

Posted in Cons, Goals

BSides Augusta

Posted on by Steph

Or fun with Soldering…

This weekend got the chance to go to my first BSides in Augusta. Smaller conference, but just as good as any big one.

The talks I sat in on were excellent, especially one about the infosec community and culture. It was basically about how people perpetuate a toxic culture feeding into this ‘hero’ mentality. Part of the issue is instead of seeing the attackers as the villain people see the users as villains and beneath them because they make “stupid” mistakes. It goes along with this book I’m reading: ‘The Smartest Person in the Room” which is about all the ego in tech.

I also got to try my hand at soldering for the second time and did pretty well. Like my little badge response to tapping and lights up like it’s supposed to. Now I’m going to go practice picking locks or soldering something else….lol.

Posted in Goals, Informational, Labs, Research, Using, Walk-Throughs

Build a Lab with Me:

Posted on by Steph

PiHole

More Info:

The Pihole is a device built on a single board computer (sbc). The device acts as an ad-blocker for your network. There are also blacklists that can be applied or you can build your own.

I good deal for people build these with a raspberry pi, but I found 2 orange pi zeroes for cheap and decided to build on out of this.

https://www.mikekasberg.com/blog/2021/05/11/how-to-install-pi-hole-on-the-orange-pi-zero.htmlhttps://youtu.be/nHCDEgZPP68

Found a video that shows you how to put wireguard vpn and unbound dns on the orange pi along with pihole. Thos is the one I plan on following.

Posted in Cons

Black Hat and DefCon 2022:

Posted on by Steph

The Aftermath

The Swag

So, this was my first time at Black Hat, first time at DefCon, first time in Vegas and it was so much. So much to see and do. It was a tadbit overwhelming, it took 2 weeks after to adjust back to life.

First I will say that both events were everything people say they are. There’s so much to see and do. I learned a bit about soldering, picked my first lock, and got to meet a good deal of cool people. I found an Illuminati Coin and got to play around with badges and fell down the badge mystery rabbit hole.

I would highly suggest going at least for everyone in cybersecurity.

I saw a few great talks (will watch more on youtube) and grabbed a ton of swag and I really can’t wait to do it all again next year.

DefCon30 Album

Posted in Cons, Goals, Informational, Research

Cyber Presentations

Posted on by Steph

So, one of my goals as I wrote before was to get better at public speaking. I worked on thos by applying for talks…even though it frankly terrifies me to think of being in front of a room full of people with all eyes on me. Luckily for my anxiety I got chosen to speak but both were to be pre-recorded.

Which is great because it still gets me speaking, but also doesn’t make me have to deal with the anxiety of the moment. It’s an important step and even an confidence boost to have my presentations be accepted. And even just being accepted and being able to add, Presenter @ so and so conference to my CV/Resume and speak on it in interviews has been helpful.

So, my advise this Saturday for someone trying to expand their cyber presence:

  • Make an effort to attend some conferences
  • If your interested apply to call for papers, you never know when something that seems interesting to you might be interesting to others
  • Its’s ok to have fears, we sll have them, but we cant let them control what we accomplish in life

Posted in Informational, Labs, Simple Malware Analysis

Build a Lab with Me (#1)

Posted on by Steph

Write the Docs…

So, I’m a little bit of a tech hoarder.  I’ve got several raspberry pis, nucs, Mac minis, and a chrome box. I also have a switch to put pfsense on.  I’ve kinda got the hardware part down (tho I am looking for 1 more machine with 16gb or ram to complete my vision).

This being said I have a few things I want out of my lab environment:

  • Malware Analysis machine
  • Security Onion Analyst machine
  • Cyber Threat Intelligence Machine
  • Possible Forensic Analysis Station
  • Also want to have a pihole

I also know I want to mess around with Docker and Python although these don’t need their own environments the other three kinda do. This is especially true for malware Analysis machine which needs to be isolated as much as possible to prevent infection of other systems.

Draft Lab Documentation

The above is the draft documentation I cooked up to kinda of mimic inventory management. I also think if I’m going to have stationary ip addresses that this should be documented as well. I started having this info written out, but have also entered it into note-taking software. This is my attempt to be meticulous and intentional in this endeavor.

Posted in Music to Work to, Uncategorized, What I've Used

Music to Work to

Posted on by Steph

Changing gears for a few posts.

There are many scholarly articles written regarding music and productivity. I know when I’m working noise helps me kind of focus and when I’m at work music helps to drown out other things. I actually spend a good deal of time listening to lessons or infographic shows, or historical bits because I’m kind of a nerd, but music aids my productivity. One of the best sounds I’ve found to listen to while working is Lofi Japanese HipHop or TripHop. I like sounds with heavy bass, but not having to think about words helps to just let the music be background.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OEX_tVDbdw

In this occasional post series I’ll be sharing some of the music that aids in making me a more productive worker and/or helps me to study.

I really got into this type of sound while I was working overseas when I would listen to Arabic HipHop mixes. From there I branched out to this and as I stated above the lack of words makes me zoom into the sound and bop along as I type away.

Links to Music/Productivity Articles: