Recovering Luddite?

Growing up Mennonite in Lancaster County with no computer, and no television, only to become a Digital Forensic Analyst and Incident Response Specialist living in New York City, has been quite a journey. My friends tell me the uniqueness of my life requires a blog, but I tell them, I haven't changed much, really.

Personal blog, nothing on here represents my employer.

Successful Threat Hunting

I received a very prestigious award this past week at work, arguably one of the biggest my company doles out. Since the fanfare and graphics were internal only and labeled as “Confidential”, I wanted to take a moment to share with you one of the big reasons why I believe, I received that award.

The title graphic used in this post is from an upcoming (and recurring) FREE class taught by Chris Brenton over at Active Counter Measures (a John Strand/Black Hills Information Security company). The first SANS class I ever took was back in 2007 and taught by Mr. Brenton, it was called “SANS SEC502 Perimeter Protection In-Depth"...back in the day, when I scanned the cert, I don’t even think I had a color scanner LOL! So how does all this tie into my award? On April 4, 2020 when so many of us were on lockdown due to COVID-19, Active Counter Measures offered their first free Threat Hunting course, taught by none other than Chris Brenton. Back then, it was a 4-hour class, which I took, and was blown away. Chris has since taught that course a total of 14 times, and I have taken it, as many. Several times after taking that class, I turned right around and used said new-found knowledge in my own threat hunting. I remember a couple of times after reviewing my notes the next day, I had a question which I put into the Active Counter Measures Discord server and Chris got right back to me. Folks, who does this, and for FREE?! Who consistently takes an entire Saturday to teach a 6-hour class for nothing! Seriously, what a gift to our community! I encourage everyone reading this to take the next class on Saturday, April 22nd, 2023 from 11 AM to 5 PM (ET). You won't regret it, and trust me, fun fact...you might just find yourself emerging from a rabbit hole, clutching a very, very real, and shiny object!

Honoring Mentoring Month

If you are new to InfoSec or trying to break into CyberSecurity, this post is dedicated to you. I have revamped my DFIRLinks Website and added a whole new row of resources for newcomers or those seeking a new role. You may be wondering why, right next to “InfoSec101”, there’s a link to “Leadership” resources. Here’s why. Many of you are just trying to get your foot in the door, but if you study the materials listed in my blog, I’m confident that you will...and it might not be long until you find yourself with an opportunity to move up from your entry-level role. Additionally, I’m a firm believer that leadership skills can help you gain that chance to move ahead. Just because your job title doesn’t have, “Manager, Director, or Team Lead” in it, certainly doesn’t mean you can’t exhibit leadership qualities.

It’s never too soon to begin building “Servant Leadership” qualities. Those traits can help you with more than just your career, they can guide you to becoming a better parent, friend, spouse, sibling, child, and so much more. Being a servant leader is far more than being just a manager, so I’ve listed some resources that I hope will inspire you.

But building your character can be hard work. It can mean things like evaluating how we apologize to people. For example, there’s a way to say, “I’m sorry” which can completely absolve yourself of any responsibility for your deeds, and then there’s a way to take ownership of your words/actions, spell them out, and truly apologize in a very specific manner.

What I’m equally advocating for you, is that you land that first gig, and then once you do, you won’t want to stop learning and trying to better yourself. So, while this post is hitting the tail-end of Mentoring Month (January), I hope you will still find it useful.