Author’s note: I originally published this article on LinkedIn. Since then, I have curated some competition-oriented resources on my Github site. Participating in cybersecurity competitions is an excellent way to learn new skills and to be introduced to different areas of focus in the field. There are several types of…

Traveling can be an adventure. It can also be a nightmare. Learning how to best navigate (pun intended!) is an essential part of making your journey more enjoyable. I love traveling. And in fact, I’m writing this post from 43,000 feet. So far this year I’ve traveled in three continents…

The challenge in this walkthrough asked for the result in decimal of 4A & 2D. Competitors typically attempt a mathematical addition operation on these numbers, but that will not achieve the desired result. …

In this walkthrough, we will be analyzing a packet capture (PCAP) file, rogue_user.pcap. The challenge was to identify the rogue user that was created by the attacker. My tool of choice for this type of analysis is Wireshark. The first step I typically take when analyzing a PCAP is to…

This is the second in my series of cyber competition challenge walkthroughs. As I’ve mentioned previously, Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions are not just fun but also an excellent way to learn. In this post, we will step through finding metadata (data about data) in a file I created called…

Capture the Flag (CTF) cyber competitions are fun and an excellent way to learn. This is the first of a series of walkthroughs on how to tackle challenges. I built this forensics-oriented modified header challenge for use in a few competitions and workshops. The challenge features a file called change…

The cybersecurity community is relatively small and very connected, and it is essential to grow and nurture a network. Who you develop relationships with can impact your chances in landing an internship, finding your dream job, or learning about a cool volunteer opportunity. It doesn’t matter what phase of your…

There is tremendous interest in launching a career in cybersecurity. Figuring out where to start is the hard part. Search “cybersecurity” in Google and you will over 97 million results. This sea of information is completely overwhelming. …