Welcome to my blog!
Discovering the cybersecurity community has been one of the best parts of my journey. This community has been overwhelmingly welcoming, encouraging, and supportive. A quick question about networks on Twitter leads to a plethora of advice and knowledge sharing. People are encouraged to ask questions, learn and grow.
As Social Engineer @AletheDenis puts it,
“This is the island of misfit toys that I have been looking for.”
One of the best pieces of advice I received came from the professor of the first cybersecurity course I took in college. He advised us to find 3 cybersecurity related podcasts and dedicate 1 hour each week to listening to them. This was how I discovered Darknet Diaries - and at the risk of sounding cliche - my life was forever changed. I have learned more from these podcasts then I did my first year of college.
This episode does a good job at highlighting the importance of data security. Jack Rhysider interviews a victim of cyberbullying who was being targeted for having a two letter Twitter username. The attacker used OSINT to find the victim's address and phone number then executed a swatting attack on the victim. A fully armed SWAT team descended on the victim's house and held him and his family at gunpoint. Jack Rhysider explores the topic of cyberbullying and how our online data can expose us and our families to physical danger.
“we’re living in a time where our personal information is spilling all over the place, polluting the internet, and it’s going to be incredibly hard to fix when the next generation wakes up and demands this stop. But the current reality is that it’s extremely easy to get information on any person today, which as you can see, can be horribly exploited.” - Jack Rhysider
Marcus J. Carey is a legend in his own right. His accomplishments in the field are too long to list, in addition to being a badass NSA Cryptologist he's authored several books on security. I recommend the Darknet Diaries episode 83: NSA Cryptologists. I'm including Marcus on my list of favorites because of his passion for helping us noobs find opportunities in the field. Every other Friday Marcus spins up a Cybersecurity Job Thread on Twitter. The conversations that take place within this thread are a great opportunity to learn more about the different flavors of cybersecurity and needs of different types of businesses and organizations.
I'm including Citizen Lab within my community favorites because of their mission to defend free speech. Civil society groups are common targets of nation state actors. Citizen Lab investigates digital threats and helps journalists and human rights activists stay safe.
I recommend the article GFWatch. GFWatch is a research platform Citizen Lab created to learn more about how the Great Wall of China's (GWC) is using DNS censorship to filter information and its impacts on the global internet.
Darknet Diaries does an incredible interview with a researcher from Citizen Lab and discusses their investigation of the NSO Group's Pegasus spyware.
Krebs - the man, the legend - is my obligatory mention. His cybercrime blog is a bookmark must.
I'm including Freedom House here because of their work in defending human rights. While not specifically a technology blog, one of the key issues they discuss is how technology is being used to undermine democracy.