Starting a Cyber Security Journey

Who Am I?

Greetings, world!

I mean, “Hello, world!” (Get the joke?)

My name is Jessica, and I want to be a cyber security professional.

For background, I’ve been a software engineer for over 5 years now. More recently, I’ve been working with embedded devices. Some of the things I’ve had to learn are how to cross-compile using CMakeLists.txt and configure the network settings of a headless Ubuntu device (so terminal only). In general, I’ve had to push my understanding and hands-on of Ubuntu at a much lower level than I was previously used to.

Outside the realm of technology, my hobbies include collecting fountain pens (my latest acquisition is a coral-red Leonardo Dragon Skin pen in X-Fine nib), practicing aerial arts, and reading books. My favorite fantasy novel is Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.

tldr: I am a nerd. 🤓

Why Cyber Security?

I remember being in college and hearing my friend tell a regaling story about something called “Stuxnet”. I’ll spare you the details, but basically, it was a super computer worm whose sole purpose was to disrupt the industrial control systems of Iran’s nuclear plant.

How it jumped from device to device until it finally landed on its industrial quarry was fascinating. My classmates and I were talking about it and speculating how the engineers divvied up the work.

That was the first time I was amazed at how sneaky a piece of software could be.

Since then, I’ve flirted on and off with the idea of studying cyber security. But my attempts at seriously self-teaching on my own time gradually all lost steam as work, hobbies, family, friends, and life, each pulled my attention in several different directions. 😓

So the dream to try my hand at something new lay dormant on the book shelf, collecting dust…

Until now.

Accountability

The purpose of this blog is to share what I learn as I work through the book “Practical Malware Analysis” by Michael Sikorski & Andrew Honig. I’ll write tool tutorials and thought pieces. I’ll talk about how a lab exercise went, what I struggled with, what mistakes I made, and what I learned.

Since this blog is public, and anyone can see this, I’m hoping that through public shaming I’ll be more consistent in posting. 😆

Keep in mind that this is a big endeavor, and I cannot guarantee that I will be successful in the sense that I even am able to complete all the lab exercises contained in this book. The book covers methods for analyzing malware, ranging from basic to advanced techniques.

But, it’s worth a shot.

Note

I’m hoping that this blog will inspire other people to self-teach and try their hand at a new and challenging subject, whatever that may be!

Apologies in advance for typos + errors.