Andrew Roderos

Tech Geek

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Hi, I’m Andrew Roderos

A network security engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area.
This site is where I talk about tech-related topics like networking and security.

VMware ESXi Home Lab – Intel NUC 10 (Frost Canyon)

If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, then you know that I recently installed VMware ESXi on Intel NUC 10 (Frost Canyon). It will join the existing hosts in my VMware ESXi home lab that I assembled in 2012 and 2016. While these hosts are old, they're still useful for what they currently do. Eventually, I'm going to repurpose the ESXi 2012 build and will talk about it in a future article. The ESXi 2016 build will continue to host my current virtual servers and future …

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Penetration Testing 101 – CTF Edition

As mentioned in my previous article, I participated in a CTF competition. Part of that CTF competition included OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence) and penetration testing exercises. Today, I want to discuss penetration testing 101 in a CTF environment. Pre-engagement Pentesting in the real world starts with the pre-engagement phase. This phase involves engaging with the client to find out their goals, scope of work, etc. It's different in a CTF environment. Some CTF will give you the …

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Defending against SSH brute force attacks

I was a victim of SSH brute force attacks, which I covered here. As a result, I discovered a great solution without using SSH keys. As another layer of security, I added two-factor authentication to my server. A few years ago, I wondered if there was a solution in Cisco IOS. I discovered a security feature called login enhancements or login block. Let's look at how it can help defend from SSH brute force attacks by enabling this feature. What is login block? It is a Cisco …

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I recently passed the JNCIA-Junos certification exam. It is my first Juniper certification and might be the last. However, I haven't completely ruled out pursuing a higher-level Juniper certification. Exam Details The JNCIA-Junos exam I took has an exam code of JN0-102. This exam is one of Juniper's entry-level certifications. In the Cisco world, this will be the CCENT equivalent. Though, in February 2020, Cisco will release its new entry-level certification called Cisco …

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