I’ve always been curious about how things work — and how they break. That curiosity started when I was young; Modding games like Counter-Strike: Source, Garry’s Mod, Oblivion, Morrowind and Minecraft Alpha. Eventually evolving into building LAMP websites from scratch and later tearing apart malware infections at a local PC repair shop in my small town.
Security found me through that PC repair shop — the same viruses showing up day in and day out, the same tactics behind them. I started digging: how did they replicate? How did they stick around? How do I remove them without having to wipe the drive? Instead of scripting mods, I was scripting malware removal.
I tried to find a job for years but eventually, started the formal path — a little college, competitions, and certifications. I joined a student cybersecurity org, and we ended up placing first in our region and third nationally at a DoD Cyber-Defense Competition. Not long after, I landed my first professional role in a SOC.
Although I hold the OSCP and several GIAC certifications, the biggest contributor to my growth has been running a homelab — originally on my family PC, then shared hosting, eventually I got fully self-hosted and even sometimes in the cloud. It’s where I’ve broken things (a lot), fixed them, and learned by doing. Setting up services by breaking the config files, digging through logs, and figuring out why something isn’t working has taught me way more than just reading docs (Still, RTFM). That hands-on experience has helped me understand how systems actually run under the hood, and it’s a big part of how I learn and improve to this day.
Now, I work as a Threat Hunter with a background in Red Teaming and Security Operations. I still chase the same thing I did as a kid breaking games: understanding what’s under the surface.
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