Andrew Roderos

Networking and Security

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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.

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VMware ESXi Home Lab – Intel NUC 12 (Wall Street Canyon)

If you follow me on Instagram, you know that I recently installed ESXi 7 on Intel NUC 12 (Wall Street Canyon). It will join my existing ESXi hosts in my home lab I assembled in 2012, 2016, and 2020. The Intel NUC 6th generation has been showing its age. Most of my Windows VMs, if not all, are running slow now. I can still use the VMs, but it is not ideal. With that said, I decided to buy yet another Intel NUC to run ESXi on. Hardware I wanted to get …

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Passed GMON

Back in March, I passed the GMON (GIAC Continuous Monitoring) certification exam, and I wanted to share my experience. As a follower, you may remember that I passed the GCIA exam last year. With this certification exam, I scored a bit higher than my GCIA exam, but not quite like my GCIH exam results. Exam information The exam has the following format: SEC511 class The SEC511 was the second lengthiest SANS class I have ever taken - the first one was SEC503. If …

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Creating a CTF challenge

Our Information Security Office has hosted a Cybersecurity Festival event yearly during Cybersecurity Awareness Month for several years. In 2020, I participated in a CTF event, which I covered here. In 2021, I was part of a team that created an infrastructure for the Red Team versus Blue Team event, which I mentioned here. Last year, I participated in creating a CTF challenge for the event. I also helped a colleague with the Offense for Defense event. To some extent, creating a CTF …

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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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