Learning Update-Week 2

Week 2 was a pretty solid one, learning-wise. I didn’t quite hit all my goals, and I also picked up a new one at the last minute. That’s a great part about this – nothing on here is on a particular timeline, so I can postpone if a more time-sensitive opportunity presents itself. I’ve also started tracking what I’m reading, since that’s a big part of my learning process.

What learning did I do this week?

Security Blue Team-Intro to Network Analysis

Worked through 4/3 planned modules. Was kind of hoping to get to at least one of the quizzes

Risk Management for Cybersecurity and IT Managers

I finished this one as planned. Overall, the course was really interesting, although I must admit that a lot of the basics around risk weren’t exactly new to me as a software tester. The only other downside, is that it’s just a video presentation; there’s no exercises or other method for evaluating how much of the material the learner absorbed. I did pick up some useful pointers on what kinds of skills and training would be expected in a field like Incident Response.

Make-Your-Own Rubber Ducky

Found some interesting GitHub repositories; haven’t been able to make time to try any yet.

PentesterLab-Essential Badge

I targeted getting through 4 exercises, and got zero done. Mid-week, I decided to shift my focus a bit on the pentesting side of things, to the next item.

NahamCon CTF

A fellow by the name of John Hammond has been posting a lot on LinkedIn about this CTF over the last couple of weeks, and since I’ve never really tried a live CTF, I figured this would be as good an opportunity as any. Due to time constraints, I was only able to get through 8 of the Easy challenges. I had a lot of fun; maybe the next one, I’ll intentionally book some time off with work & family, to try and focus a bit more. Since the CTF required a team, and I made a last-minute decision to give it a try, I set up a team-of-one called BSides St. John’s.

Reading-Writing a Test Plan Made Easy

One of the things I do to expand my horizons, is reading. I don’t get as much time for it as I’d like, but I try to read at least a few pages every night. I finished this book on Saturday, and found it to be a pretty solid guide to test planning. It might be more useful for folks who haven’t got as much experience, or for testers who are struggling to explain why they design their plans the way they do.

What Learning Is On The Agenda This Week?

Security Blue Team-Intro to Network Analysis

I’m planning on finishing this course this week. There’s only a couple of quizzes, and a capstone project.

Planning and implementing a Security Incident Response

I’m looking to finish the first module, on Threat Modelling, of this Udemy course.

NahamCon CTF

The challenges are going to be online for another week, without scoring, so I’m planning on getting through at least two challenges.

PentesterLab-Essential Badge

If I can get through two challenges on NahamCon, I’m going to take on a couple of the Essentials exercises on PentesterLab.

Reading-Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing

I actually started this book on Sunday evening. So far, it’s really interesting! As someone who tends to prefer exploratory testing to more prescriptive test cases, I’m hoping to pick up a few new tricks.