School days
Ever since my school days, I have been a curious tech geek who loves fiddling around with his devices and finding out how things work. This curiousity led me to dwell into the world of Android custom ROMs and Linux and I was instantly in love with them. While exploring the different Linux distributions, I came across Kali Linux. At first I was intrigued by the whole lot of pre-installed applications it came with. Playing around with a couple of them and researching more, for the first time I learnt about ethical hacking and cybersecurity. I also hacked my wifi and android phone (ofc following YouTube videos :P). At this point I was certain I wanted to get into cybersecurity. I was also introduced to programming through the C language in my 8th grade and continued my programming journey with C++ from 9th grade. With my fascination for computers and cybersecurity, choosing to pursue Bachelors in Engineering in Computer Science wasn’t a hard decision.
University days
I joined PES University in 2019 and in my first year, I attended the workshops organised by the cybersecurity center (C-ISFCR) and club (I later become a part of the core team) and also participated in multiple CTFs. In the 2nd CTF that I participated, I was in the top 10 with over 150 participants. I was delighted and this further motivated me. In early 2021, I completed the Cybersecurity Nanodegree program offered by Udacity. In the Summer, I applied to join ISFCR and after demonstrating my skills, not only was I accepted, but I was also offered to intern at a cybersecurity startup for the Summer! I interned there for 2 months. Later the same year, I learnt about GIAC certificates and the SANS Technology Institute. I immediately knew I wanted to enroll in one of their programs. Since I was still a undergraduate student at this time, I decided to enroll in the Undergraduate Certificate in Applied Cybersecurity program. Since I am based in India and hence an international student, I had to get my transcript evaluated from IEE. Anyways after the long process, I finally applied and was accepted in April 2022. I decided to start my first course (GFACT) after my semester exams and started it in June 2022. I finished the course contents and both the practice tests in less a month. I gave the final exam on 1st July and passed with a score of 99%! Since I passed it with a score > 90%, I was invited to the GIAC Advisory Board. I immediately enrolled for my second course (GSEC) and passed it with 96%. I then decided to take a small break and after a couple of months (it was 2023 by then) I enrolled for my third course (GCIH). I went on to pass it with a score of 99.26% (just missed 100% :( ). I was also interning at Digicert at this time. Being in the core team of the Cybersecurity Club, I organised workshops and CTFs. Apart from all the cybersecurity stuff, I was the head mentor for Android kernel development and Linux at Hackerspace, PESU. I organised a hackathon under Hackserspace which was a lot of fun! I was also in the core team of Project Xtended, which is a custom ROM based on AOSP (Android Open Source Project). Apart from contributing to the source code, I also managed the servers, websites, and bots.
Current
I am currently working as an Associate Software Engineer in Digicert.
Recently I built my first homeserver which also happens to be my first PC build. It was a lot of fun and you should definitely follow me on Twitter/ X as I plan to tweet updates/ any other cool stuff I find (and ofc cybersecurity stuff as well). You will also know when I release new blogs :). I primarily built it to gain hands on experience enhance my knowledge about networking, bare metal hypervisors (they are very cool!), the things I learnt in my SANS courses like Active Directory, SIEMs, Firewalls etc.