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Category: Personal

I am CISSP Certified!

I passed the CISSP exam in April 2021! Such a difficult exam! The exam is nothing like the practice tests you can find available for free or for purchase. Throughout the exam, I felt unprepared; halfway through the exam I felt like I was failing, that I should take mind-notes for my next attempt. To my surprised, I passed at 100 questions at around 110 minutes into the exam. This is how I did it…

2020 in Retrospection

I took some training Having recently switched job and the mandate of Working from Home (WFH), I had a lot of time in my hands. I decided to take advantage of the situation by taking training as needed. My current employer provides all its employee Udemy for Business account. We can take any course available in Udemy at no-cost to us. It has been a tool of immense value because it provides mastery level training in many areas of IT…

pfSense and Verizon FiOS

I have a small homelab setup at home that I use to practice cyber ninja skills and test new technology. My homelab consist of a refurbished HP Z420 Workstation with 64 GB RAM and over 2 TB of SSD storage used as a server. The server is running VMware ESXI 6.7, which hosts several VMs. One of the VMs is pfSense and has a 2 NIC adapter assigned for LAN and WAN. I also have Verizon’s FiOS G1100 router that…

GIAC GCIH Certified!… and some tips.

On October 16 2019, I passed GCIH exam with a score of 93%. Honestly, I was surprised I scored so high. I didn’t feel like I had a passing score until 2.5 hours (out of 4 hours) into the exam. The exam is designed to measure your knowledge on the many cyber attack types and tools discussed in their book material. In order to pass, it is important to understand in which stage of incident handling you are in. Additionally,…

Farewell Census Team!

Today, I close another chapter in my life. After 4 years working for the US Census Bureau, I leave in search of a new and more challenging adventure in an area that interests me the most. I have learned a lot in those 4 years: from system administration to information security. Thanks to everyone who took their time and patience to mentor me; and those who took their time to listen to me as I shared my knowledge and experiences…