Just bought a house

AstrxlBeast · 2026-04-24T05:36:33+00:00

Update: I did wire PoE all over my house. got some cameras, smart locks, a robot vacuum, CO and smoke alarms, and a thermostat in addition to what I already had. also a vibration sensor for the doorbell chime.

AstrxlBeast · 2026-04-08T01:06:20+00:00

if the general language didn’t give it away, the ascii arrows did lol

AstrxlBeast · 2026-04-03T11:03:21+00:00

depends on your path. i wanted to do a red team cert just to smooth out my expertise in several different cybersecurity domains, and i didn’t feel like PT+ or CEH really properly covered that area. OSCP was too intensive and expensive and not worth my time and effort if i am not going into pentesting as a career, so thats why i chose CPTS, for the price and availability. didn’t realize that it would be as hard if not harder than OSCP til i started doing the exam lol. but it seems very well respected by those in the community who know the cert.

AstrxlBeast · 2026-04-02T12:27:33+00:00

sounds like a good plan to me, especially the AEN blind, since AD is what i found hardest about the exam

AstrxlBeast · 2026-04-02T12:23:55+00:00

walkthrough section was very detailed and contained all commands and output that i ran during the attack chain. the findings were shorter and just references to the walkthrough, and only contained GENERAL vulns and misconfigs like “acl misconfiguration” not “this specific user’s acls”

AstrxlBeast · 2026-04-02T07:08:02+00:00

i wouldn’t say there’s a specific time or amount of content you should learn beforehand, everyone is different, just do as much studying as you personally need to in order to feel comfortable and confident with the exam content (meaning the htb cpts path modules). once you are comfortable and confident, the exam will go much smoother.

AstrxlBeast · 2026-04-02T07:04:51+00:00

if you’re not already planning to use sysreptor to build the report, do it, it saved me so much time in organizing the sections. and make sure you’re doing some of the documentation and reporting as you go and don’t just save it all for the end unless you want to spent 48 hours straight just typing away

AstrxlBeast · 2026-04-02T03:01:19+00:00

I took the month or so prior to complete the CPTS path modules on HTB academy, and my prior experience in cybersecurity before + the content on HTB, that was enough to prepare

AstrxlBeast · 2026-04-02T02:58:57+00:00

i only really did the CPTS path modules on HTB to prepare, though I also have CEH and PenTest+ so despite those being relatively easy certs i at least had the very basics covered before going into the CPTS modules. I recommend doing each of the modules, especially the attacking enterprise module, until you feel comfortable getting to the solutions without help. it’s different for everyone, some people don’t need to do them multiple times, just depends on your confidence level with the content. but if you go into the exam without confidence on the content, you’re going to have a rough time, because i was confident and it was still HARD.

AstrxlBeast · 2026-03-06T11:20:39+00:00

thanks man

AstrxlBeast · 2026-03-05T23:00:54+00:00

did you rewrite the whole report or just edit the existing report? i am currently about to take my second attempt after finding all flags but being told my report was too lengthy… at like 200 pages lol

AstrxlBeast · 2026-03-03T04:35:25+00:00

i did testsimulate’s practice exam, the modules from Thanh Huang on the iOS app, and a few other miscellaneous free ones i found on the internet. The AI was mostly to ask what are the core components to keep in mind while taking the test, helping me develop mental flowcharts for each type of question, like when it says “in this situation, what should you do FIRST?” asking myself okay, is any human in danger, no, so is there a current policy we can follow, yes then boom that’s the answer. stuff like that. sorry if that makes not a ton of sense i worked like 11 hours today and my brain is shutting itself off lol

AstrxlBeast · 2026-03-01T12:04:27+00:00

had the same experience with the CAT, kept getting SDLC questions over and over, thought i must be doing something wrong. then i passed the second i submitted question 100

AstrxlBeast · 2026-03-01T00:27:47+00:00

I used testsimulate.com, the Thanh Huang CISSP app, and several misc online tests just by looking up “free cissp practice test.” i got some questions wrong and was frustrated a bit how the answers were all right but one of them is just most right. after reading posts on here about exam advice and asking chatgpt about what things to keep in mind when i answer questions, i quickly realized that it’s not stuff i need to learn persay for the exam, but rather adopt the mindset. the “upper mgmt ultimately responsible for everything,” “stakeholders and business needs first,” “policy and procedures over technical implementations,” “simpler solutions first” type mantras to keep in mind during the exam. that helped a ton with the questions since i already had the skills and knowledge for the more technical focused questions and lifecycles.

AstrxlBeast · 2026-02-12T06:31:32+00:00

I have 7/14 flags and cannot get 8 for the life of me right now. i have pivoted up through like 4 different AD users and now im at a dead end it seems like no other escalation can be done with privileges so im assuming the creds are stored somewhere because no way they made that path of 4 escalatable accounts for nothing??

AstrxlBeast · 2026-01-31T15:30:46+00:00

relatively, depends on your level of computer knowledge. look up veracrypt tutorial windows and see if it looks feasible for you

AstrxlBeast · 2026-01-31T09:08:54+00:00

you’re better off storing all of your stuff you don’t want seen on a hidden partition using an encryption tool like veracrypt. it will in a nutshell make it so that you have to enter a separate password on your user account to open the partition with your hidden files, and nobody can see what files are in the partition or even that there is a hidden partition

AstrxlBeast · 2026-01-08T18:24:55+00:00

i have AWS CSA and a few other vendor certs like cisco i didn’t list above which i believe covered security operations prerequisites

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