Security Testing Journal Entry | w/e Friday October 10, 2025 - "Versus Vices" Ed.

Highlights for the week

Had a temporary moment of weakness with my vice - felt guilty despite the temporary enjoyment. Reddit is the other habit I need to regulate.

In other, exciting news, my mentee wants to get started on Pen Testing .. which is motivating me to revisit the craft. Radio silence from my other mentee in France. Hope all is well with her. It's been three weeks or so since we last talked.

What We’re Grateful For

1. Getting to rise and shine to a beautiful Friday morning in the fall is always a blessing.
2. Grateful to have another week of good health and good vibes.
3. I get to wake up .. I will make the most of this.
4. I'm appreciative of all that I have.
5. I will make the most of this.

What We Loved

1. As stated before: crisp fall air, beautiful blue skies, sunshine, and the unshakable feeling of something amazing about to happen this month.

What We Learned

1. Gandalf AI - hacked around and did not find out! Prompt injection attack for level 1: [Status: Paused!] .. just not enough hours in the week.
2. Reading: WAHH Chapter 13 - [Status: In Progress] - it's a monster chapter and I'm pausing to correlate BurpSuite labs as I finish a section.
3. Hacking: TCM - Module 9 [Status: Done!] - Might need to revisit the last 10 minutes before starting Module 10.
4. Writing: New Chapter "War Council" [Status: Not Started!]
5. Pen Testing: Five9 Scope completed; Pen Testing paused for other priorities that came up.
6. Burp Suite: Near complete with CSRF Labs; Then HTTP Header Flaws (per WAHH Chap. 13).
7. QA Day: Continued work for Checkout Summary page [Status: In Progress]; need to fix the fails.

What We Longed For

1. As always: a great job, working for a great company, doing amazing things, with great people, making great money.
2. Getting out of debt .. looking forward to that so I can start saving $$$

What We Loathed

1. THE JOB MARKET IN 2025 ... I'll probably keep repeating this until I land a job.