A living record of breaking into cybersecurity, working inside a real SOC, building in public, and everything in between.
I set out to get a cybersecurity job within 6 months and document every step publicly. I got hired at Arctic Wolf in 3. The challenge is officially closed. Here is what happened, what worked, and where this goes next.
Recording took over 4 hours for my first video and it was only 8 minutes. Editing took about 10 hours. I thought I'd knock it all out in an hour.
The side of BTuff beyond the terminal. Security is the work. This is everything else: life, growth, real talk, and what it actually looks like to build something while building a career.
Cable management, Pi-hole on a Raspberry Pi, DHCP/DNS configuration, and the troubleshooting session that almost broke me before it finally worked.
Ran a full Nmap scan on my home network. Expected 10-15 devices. Found over 20. Then found actual vulnerabilities on my printers. This is what security looks like in practice.
Not just spotting phishing — the full investigation workflow. From artifact collection to final verdict, this is how analysts build evidence-based conclusions on a suspicious email.
Finally made it into phishing analysis in BTL1. But first: Active Directory. Turns out understanding how enterprise authentication works is inseparable from understanding how attackers abuse it.
A real-life social engineering encounter at work — and how months of security training kicked in before I got burned. Plus 10 blue team fundamentals I reinforced this week.
First week of the challenge — jam-packed with review. Starting BTL1 after already holding Security+ and Network+. Turns out knowing a concept and actually using it are very different things.