Security Testing Journal Entry | w/e Friday March 29, 2024 - "Easter Week" Ed.

Highlights for the week

This past 40 days of Lent commemorates the end days of our savior Jesus Christ. We honor his life, death, and resurrection. More importantly, we honor his mission on earth. The message was simple, "love each other as I love you." That is to say, unconditional, forgiving, and without pretext. Cheers!

In other news, had a brilliant study session with my mentee. Achievement Unlocked! Another pen test completed.

Oh! Let me not forget, my mentor forwarded my resume to someone within his company. Same one I interviewed last time .. and lost. Stay tuned! Hoping my luck changes.

What We Loved

1. Mentee-1 - As always, worked with one mentee to improve her resume.
2. Mentee-2 - Worked with my other mentee to get her better prepared with her studies.

What We Learned

1. Automation (Web) - learned that Cypress discontinued support for xpath. That being said, somehow, things are working again.
2. Automation (iOS) - Finished XCUI iOS tests. Refactor .. tbd!
3. QA - Completed a ton of QA related activities, like test plan, test scenarios, risk analysis, requirements traceability, testing, and reporting.
4. Pen Test - completed the security audit and wrote up the report. On to the next one ... love this :)
5. Linked In Learning - Learned how to use Azure DevOps and deploy a project to that CI. Next week, I'm going to try deployment with the project.
6. Cult.ure - "paused"; "Husb..." - in the final chapters of the story that ballooned over the past two months. Love it :)
7. UTest - Signed up for remote work with new site. Next week - onboarding
8. TesterWork - Opted out of one campaign that required being "ON" for seven days; Signed up for another .. who knows how much longer I will keep this one

What We Longed For

1. It was a bummer that I didn't land the job. Every rejection is a redirection!

What We Loathed

1. UNEMPLOYMENT - 545 days since my last paycheck! Rejections galore. It's possible most of these jobs listed are not even real!
2. RemoTask - not sure how much longer I'm going to keep this profile active. I haven't completed the onboarding because they want a profile pic to verify id .. sketchy!

Security Testing Journal Entry | w/e Friday March 22, 2024 - "Gratefully Good Grinding" Ed.

Highlights for the week

Lots of good stuff this week! Ran some personal errands which impacted some goals, but otherwise had a great week where I got to meet a new Pen Testing Professional. We talked a bit about the craft and what it takes, as well as how to get started. The answer - personal branding.

On the automation front, getting "ok" with XCode. It only took 14 years to finally get around to it. Coupled with knowing Espresso, I feel really proud of how that's come along.

Another site to practice pen testing is selected. Been grinding along.

What We Loved

1. Meeting with a new Cybersecurity professional. Nothing new learned, but it was still fun.
2. Made a new contact with a CISSP Security Professional. She seems like great people.
3. As always, meeting with my mentees is always the highlight of my week. Got to iron out some important things regarding her job prospects and career choice.
4. Lovin' my new PPL workout.

What We Learned

1. Automation - Learned about using POM w. XCode. Need to put that in place next week. Also learning about Azure DevOps (finally!)
2. Burp Suite - Closing in on completion of the labs. I won't get to all of them because I need BS Pro!
3. Security - New pen testing underway. Nothing new this week.
4. Security 2 - Learned a couple of things about threat modeling.
5. Cult.ure - "paused"; "Husb..." - exciting chapter and interesting character revelation.
6. Personally - improving the negative self talk. Learning to accept the consequences of my actions and the "why" behind them. Hoping I'm living to my true purpose.

What We Longed For

1. Another week, no new updates regarding a new job. This is getting really bad!

What We Loathed

1. Rejection for jobs that keep getting reposted.
2. Technical interviews that involve a Leetcode/Hackerrank code challenge with zero relevance to the job you'd actually be doing.

Security Testing Journal Entry | w/e Friday March 15, 2024 - "Luck o' the Irish" Ed.

Highlights for the week

St. Patrick's day is fast approaching, commemorating 7 years since the passing of my grandma (RIP!). The time is flying by. Lots of decent news to report, starting with landing another freelancing gig testing AI, interviewing with an agency for a new role, and finally finishing both the pen test and linked in learning.

What We Loved

1. Finally got to start that new PPL workout. So far, so good. The love is in the grind!
2. Confronted my tech interview fears and did not feel like a failure. I didn't succeed, but not because I didn't try. I studied wrong .. sort of.

What We Learned

1. Automation - Big key win taking a crash course in XCUI Automation. Things are working and moving steadily.
2. AI - Got under the hood by preparing for a hackerrank interview (that I bombed) and had fun along the way. Will be blogging about it.
3. Pen Testing - Completed the report for the practice site. My mentor provided some insight and new scripts. He says I'm doing the right things
4. Linked In Learning - Completed the module for Security Fundamentals. Nothing too revealing to learn, but there were some OSINT tips that came in handy.
5. Cult.ure - paused; "Husb.." - made a little progress. Paused on the writing due to other priorities.
6. Burp Suite - Completed the module for Server-side Request Forgery. Will complete the Race condition one a.s.a.p.

What We Longed For

1. As always, not having a proper job is frustrating. But I'm not so concerned about where I work. I want the right environment, with the right people, for the right pay. I pray for a little bit of Irish luck to find its way to our family.

What We Loathed

1. Interview process where there was no proper introduction, but rather jump right into the technical assessment. The Worst!!

Security Testing Journal Entry | w/e Friday March 8, 2024 - "Same Day, New Opportunities" Ed.

Highlights for the week

A very exciting week. Had a couple of opportunities presented to me, one being a potential for a new job, and another learning LLM. I got to finish the Pen Testing course and started cleaning up my linked in learning modules from the last time. Hoping of hopes to land a new job a.s.a.p! The debt hole is getting deeper and deeper.

What We Loved

1. Having a network of friends, online or in real life, has been instrumental. It feels good to be surrounded by good vibes.

What We Learned

1. Automation - finished another round of tests with a practice site. There was a lot of problems with the site itself, so there was only so much to test.
2. Burp Suite - Started Server-Side Request Forgery module.
3. Coursersa - Finished the Pen Testing/Forensic Data learning. It was very high-level, but I learned a bunch regarding forensic data analysis.
4. Linked-In Learning - Huge learning module regarding API security testing. I leveraged LLM to create a suite of automation test scripts in python. SOOO COOL!!
5. Pen Testing - started a new security audit with a bank app. Work in progress!
6. Blog - Finally published another blog regarding LLM and how it might benefit QA.
7. Cult.ure - paused! "Husb" - got over the writing block and got to a good place. I should start to wrap up the story .. it's getting away from me a little!

What We Longed For

1. As always .. a job and pay

What We Loathed

1. Freelancing QA site TW is dicey when it comes to how they moderate bugs reported. It takes a fight to convince people your bug is right. So exhausting.

Security Testing Journal Entry | w/e Friday March 2, 2024 - "Leap Day" Ed.

Highlights for the week

It was a unique year this year, as February brought with it the 29th - leap day - a rare date that occurs once every four years. A fairly quiet week with minimal goals hit due to personal obligations that needed to be tended to.

What We Loved

1. Pen Testing and consistently learning something new

What We Learned

1. Pen Testing - Finally got around to watching the video regarding
2. Coursera - Week 4 (Scripting) half-way done. Learned how to write a super-basic bash script
3. Playwright (Autom.) - - baby steps with automating the
4. Cult.ure - Paused; "Husb.." is nearing the final act

What We Longed For

1. Much like last week ... desperately need a job! I will be insolvent after the 20th.

What We Loathed

1. Unemployment - 500+ days since my last paycheck

Security Testing Journal Entry | w/e Friday February 24, 2023 - "Teens of the Information Age" Ed.

Highlights for the week

Finally got around to completing the module for Digital Forensics. It took retaking the test a couple of times, but I was happy with the module overall. So looking forward to the scripting module next week. I've also chipped away at the Pen Test for a practice site. Son's birtday is tomorrow .. he's closer to adulthood. Where does the time go!

Things are going to get squirrly next month if I don't land a job. March finances are covered, but April will be problematic if I don't land something NOW!

What We Loved

1. See "highlights ..." pretty much sums it up

What We Learned

1. Playwright (Autom.) - Started on automating basic scenarios for "The Book Store", somethign about clicking the title isn't working (m'eh)
2. Coursera Security Basics - It's a wrap with Digital Forensics. On to the final module "Scripting"
3. Pen Testing - Near-complete with testing the site. Might leverage what's on the spreadsheet to finish next week
4. Cult.ure - Paused; "Husb.." is nearing the final act

What We Longed For

1. As always, another week w/o job leads

What We Loathed

1. TesterWork having to fight for obvious issues. The payout was trivial for the 1 bug they did accept.
2. Sometimes I forget to read the room and display a lack of empathy for others. I was raised to be tough and keep it moving, others want to rant w/o a fix
3. Feeling like a failure is really starting to weigh on me. This whole unemployment situation has got to change

Security Testing Journal Entry | w/e Friday February 16, 2024 - "Valentine's Week" Ed.

Highlights for the week

For all the lovie-dovie sentiment on Valentine's Day, I've never been good at being romantic. The few times I've tried, I've been burned. Sadly, I'm not that guy! I need to do better!

Lots of goals accomplished: published my first blog post, starting a new pen test, automation practice is solid, cleaned out the Mac finally (lots more to do), "Husb" book is coming along .. not going to publish it, but its fun.

What We Loved

1. Tester Work: Some light (remote) work. Finished my first test assignment and won a deliberation on tickets
2. Meeting with mentor was efficient and effective. I discussed the Pen Test check list. It was worth using
3. Mentee on Linked In lost 2 job prospects, but has a few others waiting. Been making sure she doesn't slip into depression
4. Loved being able to add a Windows 11 VM on my machine. I may be able to move forward with some other labs/side projects!

What We Learned

1. Playwright (Autom.) - Used faker to interact with date picker; learned to drag/drop an element on the grid
2. Coursera Security Basics - Learning a lot about Data Forensics. Tons of fun. Behind by a couple of days, but its been fun!
3. Pen Testing - Starting a new project with Client "OpenCart". The site is buggy, and checkout flow is N/A, but it's all about the reps!
4. Cult.ure - Paused; "Husb.." is nearing the final act

What We Longed For

1. Job market is an absolute sh** show, with more people getting laid off then getting hired.

What We Loathed

1. Unemployment - 17 months and counting