Hello World!

Hello! This is the first post in my first ever blog! As someone who has recently finished university and is becoming serious about finding work in the tech industry, I realise how important it is to have a place where I can highlight and showcase myself along with my work.

Why Now?

In hindsight, this should have been something I should have done a long time ago, showcasing the work I did through University, my placement year and projects I have worked on. However, the famous quote “The best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago, the second best time is now” has resonated with me. All I can do is reflect on what I should have done and put in the work now, this way as I set off on my journey into the vast virtual landscape of the cyber world I will always have something to look back on and hopefully share some information with others along the way.

So, what have I done and what will I be doing?

As mentioned on the main page previously, I have just finished my degree in Ethical Hacking and Cybersecurity from Coventry University. During this time, I have gone over many modules including exploit development, web security, applied forensics and practical penetration testing to name a few. I also did a placement year working for an amazing company where I focused on web testing. During this time, I learned a lot about the industry and the standards required for clients to ensure a high quality and professional outcome at the end of the tests.

As for right now, thanks to my universities ‘flying start’ program, I have a voucher to have one attempt at CompTIA’s Pentest+ exam, which at the time of writing this blog (02/07/2024 or 07/02/2024 for the Americans) is something I plan on booking shortly to get my first certification under my belt!

Another thing which I will go over in another blog post is continuing to study exploit development, the main aspect I have struggled with for university is coding, it’s something I have put on the back burner for a long time but while doing the exploit dev module in my final semester it is something I have found myself to vastly enjoy, there is nothing like the thrill of banging your head against the wall for a week wondering why your code isn’t leveraging a root shell, just to add two lines of code that you dismissed at the start of your research to get it to work! (A very true and painful discovery, thank you Ret2LibC attacks)

So what does the future hold?

The future/start of my career is something I am thrilled to look forward to, there are many new avenues to explore and I hope by keeping this blog up to date I can show you what I am up to and maybe even help you along the way! Here’s a quick list on the current plan for me:

• Continue improving my knowledge in the realm of exploit development and coding.
• Study and take the CompTIA Pentest+ exam for my first certification.
• Become more active on platforms like Hack The Box and use this blog for writeups.
• Keep this blog up to date with the latest things I have been doing or things that I have found interesting!

Thank you.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post, I hope it has given you a good insight on what to expect from future Thane and the blog!