Hello World.
Welcome to my blog - Learning Logs by Angela!
Creating a blog is something that I have been talking about doing for decades! I have always found a reason to procrastinate though:
“I do not love writing!”
“I will need to write many posts before I publish my first one to have back ups so I can keep a regular posting schedule!”
“I don’t know if I want to learn in public: it’s hard, sometimes embarrassing, and a lot of work!”
I’m going to ignore all those thoughts and just start typing and see where this goes.
I want to document my learning, keep myself accountable, and maybe my mistakes or the resources I find can help a person or two along the way!
So what exactly is a learning log?
Learning logs are journals in which a student documents what they are learning, how they are learning it, and their reflections on the learning experience.
By writing this blog, I am hoping to gain a deeper understanding of what I am learning, share it with others, and develop a better self-awareness to figure out all of the things that I don’t know. I intend to document my cybersecurity learning journey, including write-ups for solving practice problems on websites like cyberdefenders.org. I also plan on writing posts to organize my thoughts and high-level thoughts and experiences of working with data and building data teams.
How did I suddenly develop this interest in cybersecurity?
I think it started with Twitter. I had an old Twitter account, but never used it or saw the appeal of Twitter.
Then a couple years ago, I was feeling really alone in the data work I was doing. I have been working with the same organization for 6.5 years, a little over 4 of those years have been working with data.
To see what other people were doing with data and the challenges they faced, I followed a few data folks on Twitter, including @beeonaposy, @clairebcarroll, @SParsonsDataViz, @tayloramurphy, @OscarBaruffa, @Randy_Au, @CMastication, @sethrosen, @LittleMissData, and @erikapullum. These people were all sharing really interesting data content, stuff that I very much related with, and/or funny data shit-posting.
A few months after this I decided it was time for a change and started a new data job within the Security world. I figured that I found a bunch of interesting data people on Twitter, so why not start looking for security people! I added a few people on Twitter who looked like they may work with cybersecurity - or at least seemed interested in it.
There seemed to be a lot of people doing something called Try Hack Me, which is a website where you learn about cybersecurity and try to ethically hack into machines. This piqued my curiosity! I always enjoyed computers and finding ways to create workarounds to get a computer to do what I wanted it to do! Previously, I had applied and been accepted to several universities and colleges for computer science and computer programming. Instead, I headed in the complete opposite direction and picked a program that allowed me to travel: 5 weeks in Montreal, 5 weeks in Spain, and a semester on a tiny French island. I completed a Bachelor of Arts with a major in French literature as a second language and a minor in Spanish. I understand why companies may be inclined to put educational requirements on job posters, but even if I could, I would never trade these experiences for a “more qualified” IT degree (why yes, that picture below is of my friends and I with water guns full of wine at a festival in Spain)! Ironically, having a French degree actually helped me get into my data career!
After doing a bit of research and reading, I decided to join Try Hack Me in April 2021. I barely even understood enough to set myself up and connect to the website with OpenVPN! All the terminology was completely new to me, and honestly I was a little nervous at first! If I connected to Try Hack Me through this OpenVPN thing, whatever that was, was I going to get hacked by all these hackers using the website?!
I muddled my way through and got everything set up with help from the awesome Twitter and Discord communities.
I was instantly hooked!!
Try Hack Me was teaching me so much; although, it was only the start of my journey! I also started attending virtual InfoSec conferences, reading books, listening to podcasts, completing courses and challenges, and meeting a lot of really great people!
First certification
After spending 9 months learning about how to use a CLI (command line interface), what tools were out there and how to use them, the basics of networking and IP routing, and the methodology for conducting a pentest, I finally decided I was ready to attempt my first certification. I took the 3 day exam for the eLearnSecurity Junior Penetration Tester (eJPT) certification and passed! For someone who knew absolutely nothing about any of this less than a year ago, this was so exciting and rewarding!
What’s next?
I completed the eJPT to prove to myself that I had learned a lot about the basics of hacking from the offensive side; however, my interest lies in the defensive side of cybersecurity. I work with data every day and I would like to eventually apply what I know to cybersecurity data. Job posters for (Threat) Detection Engineers are currently catching my eye!
I am in no rush to change jobs because I really enjoy my current job, but I do want to learn more about cybersecurity to be ready to eventually change jobs when the right time comes. Recently, I have pivoted to learning through more defensive platforms such as Cyberdefenders.org. I am always looking for new websites or resources to learn from though. If you have any suggestions, please share them!
Wow, you made it to the end of my first blog post - thanks for checking it out! I am excited to bring you along on this journey with me. Have any suggestions on learning platforms or want to share some cool resources? Comment below or reach out on Twitter @T1nk3r3ll4!