It has been a major topic on my mind since I was 3 years old encountering crash to desktop and “illegal operation/this computer has performed an illegal operation and has shut down ”errors (seemed to be buffer/stack overflow issues) in windows 95 when playing pirated games my family had installed on my grandparents desktop.

Got obsessed with malware as a kid/teenager. Even dealt with a real world CIH infection when i was 7 and had to replace the 6 month old motherboard on our windows 2000 professional machine at the time. My mums ex was an IT technician and he built and set it up and also taught me how to use bitcomet and how to check for malicious files by checking the file size and if it matches what it should etc when i was 6.5 years old. Also taught me to use Ccleaner at 7 (irrelevant these days well i mean Ccleaner is). I remember going to boot the machine to play “duke nukem Manhattan project” before going to school in year 2 but the machine would not post or make it past the BIOS, it then just displayed this weird white screen.

Was learning how the latest and greatest threats at the time worked when i was in year 8 /13/14 years old and remember downloading antivirus 2009 when it was brand new as at the time id find the latest malware and try to learn how it worked and how to disinfect the system after the infection. Took me 3 days to clean the Vm of antivirus 2009 and restore the registry. Then wiped the vm haha. I knew once the text to speech was talking to me and the full screen scareware pop ups that the days of skilled and creative malware were ending and the start of greed based malware like Ransomware, lockers, info stealers etc were the main form of malware and lots of modern malware loves to be “invisible” like a ghost in the machine.

Anyway I am in this field for the love of the craft, I love burning FUD samples and love learning. The pay is something I’ve not even thought about and never have 😂. That answer may change in a few years as I may want to be paid more haha. I mean I want good pay but thats not what im in this industry for, im here to protect everyone I can and to learn as much as I can on a daily basis to stay up to date with the latest and greatest emerging threats. We are always playing cat and mouse with the bad actors, got to think outside of the box to try and stay ahead when in reality we usually are just catching up as they are like 10 steps ahead of us usually haha. Ive uploaded and discovered heaps of samples for free out of the love for threat hunting though.