Yesterday, I passed the GPEN (GIAC Penetration Tester) certification exam, and I wanted to share my experience. If you follow me on social media, especially on Instagram, then you might have noticed that I have been on hiatus from taking certification. The last certification exam I took was the GMON (GIAC Continuous Monitoring). Exam information The exam has the following format: SEC560 class I attended SEC560 (Enterprise Penetration Testing) class during SANS Security West 2026, …
CTF
How to solve my PCAP CTF challenges
For the past three years, I have been a volunteer for our Cybersecurity Festival event during Cybersecurity Awareness Month. In my first year, I volunteered to create a few purposely-built vulnerable machines for the Red versus Blue team event. Last year, I volunteered for two events. The first was the Capture The Flag (CTF), and the second was the Offense for Defense event. This year, our Information Security Office team asked me to come back to be part of a talented team to create …
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 …
Working with PCAPs
As a network or security professional, working with PCAPs comes with the territory. Some CTFs also include PCAP challenges, and while Wireshark is the software of choice for some people, learning other tools can help get the flag quickly. In this post, I will cover command-line utilities one can use when working with PCAPs. Misspelled user agent In one of the CTFs I participated in, the task was to find misspelled user agent string. You can do this with Wireshark, but Tshark and Linux …
Working with logs
In some CTFs, working with logs is part of the challenge. While you can certainly use your favorite text editor to find things, I believe it is better to use Linux command-line utilities to acquire the flags quickly. With that said, arming yourself with Linux skills is paramount to your success in CTFs and the real world. This post will cover a few Linux command-line utilities I use in CTFs, typically. Word count Some low-difficulty CTF questions would ask for the number of lines of a …