Security Testing Journal Entry | w/e Friday April 21, 2023

Highlights for the week - Mercury in Retrograde Edition!

So this week was a bit of a setback. There was a glitch found in the tax calculation software of a service I have been using for the better part of twenty years. We had explicitly decided NOT to have a payment debited from my account, yet the software somehow sent the instruction that it was ok to do so, thus causing an epic overdraft. Several of my bills that were set on autodebit went unpaid. The services had to be unplugged while the matter is resolved. At the moment, I am utterly useless. I don't have an income that could weather the storm, and I don't have savings that would help with the hurt.

Speaking of income, another week in the bag and no contact from the company I interviewed with. Not a "yes" or a "no", just silece. I don't even know anymore! I have friends that have successfully bounced from job to job, no setbacks. Close to 8 months and the doubts are starting to creep in. I need a job, but do I really want QA? Security is still far on the horizon. THIS IS REALLY BAD!!

What We Loved

1. Friends have reached out regarding the status of the job I interviewed at. They share my strife.
2. Things at home are way better than a month ago. Small steps, but the missus still cares :)
3. Sat in on a live Study Group Session with Professor Messer for Security+ which was really cool.

What We Learned

1. Network+ - Really cool learning on common attacks like Denial-of-service, On-Path Attacks, VLAN Hopping, Password attacks, and more.
2. Security+ - Fun learning about common attack vectors and threat actors.
3. BurpSuite - the Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF) lab required the professional edition. Nothing done.
4. Automation - a couple of key mildstones: Appium finally works on my system, using JAVA. Next lesson is actually writing a test. The other key milestone is I finished the course for API testing and working through Load Testing. Learned a new mnemonic for testing APIs which was amazing.
5. Book - Behind schedule by a little (actually a lot; my goal of 1500words daily has not been met yet .. why? not making the time). Will need to refocus to once a week, or block an hour.

What We Longed For

1. Still longing for a paycheck; waiting on closed out Roth-IRA(2) to hit my bank so I can have the rent and bills for May.
2. Need more time to write
3. Will probably start a new workout in May

What We Loathed

1. After a three-week jerk-around, no follow up regarding my application. I have no words!!