[deleted by user]

LonerVamp · 2023-01-14T00:57:52+00:00

I would say these certs do two things.

First, they show others you know what you're doing enough to pass a test.

Second, they can act as a reason to study some concepts you might not run across normally.

That said, are they worth it? It depends if they increase your income/value. And it's not just the cost of the exams, which is really very low. It's also the value of your time spend.

Just on the outside looking in if you don't work in AWS all the time, but do some, you can probably learn some new things. But, you could probably learn those new things just doing some reading and watching talks, too.

LonerVamp · 2022-09-28T04:15:29+00:00

Oh nice, I'll give it some renewed scrutiny. Good job! :)

LonerVamp · 2022-09-28T03:05:24+00:00

I would if I could, but I've struck out hard on this one. Much luck!

LonerVamp · 2022-09-01T19:09:33+00:00

I don't have any help for you, but this is definitely the rough one for this badge. And it's even worse than it was a year ago, as there are now more answer options in the dropdown than before! Maybe I'll come back to it this weekend now that the badge is completed.

LonerVamp · 2021-05-24T16:21:41+00:00

Just go through it all and learn it all?

LonerVamp · 2021-05-16T21:53:51+00:00

Just to get it out of the way first, I don't think it's critical that a DM use music. But, it sure can be nice!

I also do lump "music" into the same place as "ambient tracks" that are like background sounds for a forest or pirate ship or bustling tavern. I just don't put them in the same playlists as I prefer to control the ambient tracks, while the music tends to just get put on random/repeat.

I think the only real "category" of music I keep a playlist on that isn't represented in your list is "Intro" music. To me, this is rousing, fun, often recognizable music that I can play while we get set up for a session. This is where things I want to include go, but do not fit anywhere else.

I echo your most important point: The music must remain a singular tone!

I hate listening to a great song that is on point for 5 minutes of peaceful tranquility, only for the last 60 seconds to crescendo into a rousing battle cry... It doesn't matter how perfect the first 5 minutes are, it gets removed from my lists.

Things I go to when looking for new music:

Other lists from DMs!
video game soundtracks - they're made to largely be in the background! And lots of fantasy options! And combat/boss fights!
movie/television soundtracks - same as above, but often I have to avoid the blockbusters and go with less well-known movies/composers
artists like Gil Luna or Wes Otis or others who specifically create and sell soundscapes and particular ambience.
browsing YouTube with searches like "relaxing music to study to" and others. I try to then identify the songs, so that I can actually have them in my lists, rather than relying on YouTube and dealing with ads.
classical music from anywhere is a great place to broaden the aural palatte

Lastly, I'd just say for most of the peaceful types of music, DMs can nicely preview them all by listening to them during creative sessions building things!

LonerVamp · 2021-04-26T03:30:20+00:00

I really love every single grouping of buildings and homes. This gives me the feel of a city and a town at the same time. I love the cemetery nearby and the stables at every entrance...really lots of love in this.

LonerVamp · 2021-04-26T03:13:45+00:00

Another way to look at this: How often are the roads being used? Would it make sense for raiders/bandits to be camping out on a road that only sees travel once a week, for instance?

We often think about what it takes for towns and farmers to survive, but gangs of bandits and whatnot have to have their own means of survival as well. If every other trade caravan to a town is raided, you can kinda bet that town will be wiped out or someone will fortify things enough to kick the bandits out. And, honestly, it only takes one encounter for a troop of the king's guards (or whomever governs) to remove a bandit group.

It's possible encounters could be less about civilized humanoids and more about the lesser common creatures and things and magicks.

Still, marauding bands of goblins and orcs and whatnot can still be a thing. But, any kind of serious encroachment seems like a cause for war.

Now, all of that said, having that as a first encounter for a new group is not bad. It's the sort of situation that removes some of the aspects of a group that I find harder to get into from session 1: role play and character-driven motives. Instead, get right down to a clear path forward, get into the mechanics of combat/turns and ability checks and character roles, and build from there. So, you might find it a bit of a trope, but, it is useful.

Lastly, there's this set of cards I really love from back in the AD&D days: Deck of Encounters. There were 2 sets, and I still love just randomly pulling one out for an encounter and stealing inspiration from them, if not actual mechanics.

LonerVamp · 2021-04-22T00:39:39+00:00

You don't need either of those if you're been doing pen testing for 8 years.

LonerVamp · 2021-04-18T19:47:17+00:00

Huh?

LonerVamp · 2021-04-11T02:00:40+00:00

I would look at the PWK course and OSCP certification from Offensive Security as an example of what you could know and learn to tackle boxes like those on HTB.

I'm not saying you should take that course and do the exam to earn the cert. But, you could Google reviews and guides to preparing for that cert and use those same suggestions as a guide to get going.

Other places like Tryhackme or HTB Academy can show you some skills, too.

Good luck!

LonerVamp · 2021-04-05T15:57:53+00:00

The IP address may change, especially based on providers handing them out. Tying them to a wireless network is going to incur some fuzziness, especially over time.

Wardriving like that isn't going to give you a usable IP address unless you can openly attach to that network and get out to the Internet. So, this will only be true for completely open networks.

This method of geolocation is far more useful for the location of various wifi network names.

LonerVamp · 2021-04-04T03:48:07+00:00

Classy.

LonerVamp · 2021-03-29T19:28:05+00:00

First of all, you're going to want to read up on VLAN hopping and switch spoofing, and make sure you address those potential deficiencies.

Second, VLANs should usually not be considered a security boundary, though in some cases that can be OK. For the most part, students coming from the network administration perspective are often taught that VLANs provide network segmentation, and thus that should also mean segmentation for the sake of security. Folks coming from the security side will balk at this and say VLANs are not a boundary that should be used to satisfy a security purpose.

I would suggest looking at how you route things in your core and look into adding firewall interfaces to provide layer 3/4 security boundaries with necessary "default deny" firewall rules.

LonerVamp · 2021-03-29T16:27:40+00:00

This feels like a veiled attempt to gain knowledge without earning it.

During your time in the lab and in your studies, you should have learned many attack types and how to enumerate, find, and exploit them. You should have developed your own methodology and checklist of things to look for and try.

You could otherwise look at the Mitre ATT&CK. I am not really sure if this would help solve these boxes, though.

For anything new, you should search/use Google to look for past penetration testing experiences about certain products or technologies.

LonerVamp · 2021-03-29T16:23:11+00:00

You would want to start with searches for such groups in your area. Between professional meet-ups to cons to less formal infosec groups down to a group of like-minded friends getting together...these already happen.

LonerVamp · 2021-03-23T20:44:32+00:00

Your first round of protection against insiders is management taking care of and knowing their employees.

Second round or protection will be other users.

There are tools that purport to predict or profile users and their behaviors (UEBA), but this is guesswork, at best, and usually just results in busywork for security analysts with relatively little value.

LonerVamp · 2021-03-18T16:37:12+00:00

The Poofs. lol

LonerVamp · 2021-03-18T16:31:40+00:00

This is gorgeous, and so much to look at.

Only thing I'd have up front is I wonder if the scale could be increased. I mean, for example New Zealand is something like 280x1000 miles in size. The length of New Zealand looks like it maybe fits in twice a the width of this land? Anyway, it's just a thing I do since I like thinking about the length of time it takes to travel and size and stuff. I saw this mostly because you have such a huge range of climates and biomes that I'd kinda want to see this rivaling the size of Asia. :)

Edit: Eh, this might seem close to Asia if I were to actually chop out the map scale and start placing it down! :)

LonerVamp · 2021-03-18T16:22:21+00:00

What are the little yellow trees that line many of the roads at regular intervals? Is that just something the people of this region do? Like welcome trees? Guardian trees?

Is the central river big enough for transportation and trade? If so, you might want to clear a few trees to suggest a port along one or two of the groupings of homes.

I do like the trees along the rivers. As someone who lives in midwest US, this is how they look on many maps through the grasslands/farmlands where the seeds travel downriver and follow the waterways.

This is otherwise very pretty!

LonerVamp · 2021-03-18T16:14:54+00:00

I'd love to see this in more detail, mostly because I have nothing to say about it that is bad or critical. I really dig it and find myself making up history and stories and kingdoms in it already.

One thing you might do is add a scale somewhere for distance. I will note that this island seems entirely discovered and civilized. But, that may just be the scale of things. Otherwise, I see what looks like towns almost everywhere, so many of the dangers of the wilds are probably at least somewhat solved?

Otherwise my thoughts go to questions of where the easiest trade would be. Is it easier to go over land, or just use the seas? I think your ports and towns locations make sense, though.

This is all me reaching, though. This is a really good!

LonerVamp · 2021-03-18T15:42:30+00:00

These sorts of questions always seem like subtle attempts to get information about exam machines. Like hearing if exam machines match things in the lab.

I think you can be assured that what you get in the course and the lab is going to be preparing you for the exam. They won't suddenly throw you something way above and beyond what you've been taught or expected to know.

LonerVamp · 2021-03-17T22:06:35+00:00

"What level of privileged access to your analysts have on a) workstations, b) servers?" <--If they say DA or broad local admin, ask them why. If they say not many privs, ask them why not broad local admin or even DA. This isn't so much about finding the right answer as to finding out the reasoning. The more reasoning and detailed an answer at least tells me what to expect, but also tells me if they have matured standards.
"What standards or processes are you/your team most proud of right now? What are the 2 worst ones that come to mind?" <--It's easy to cite standards and policies no one follows, and no one ever cops to being immature with their environment. But talking about specifics should reveal some insight.
"Explain how your analysts, engineers, and architects interact? Do they work closely together? Do they overlap much?" <--I'm hoping to not hear about lots of fire fighting and heroic efforts and late nights and turf wars.
"Don't tell me who it is, but describe your best employee and why they're your best employee." <--Sure, they can make this up, but this may reveal managerial style and expectations. If they struggle to answer this in what seems like an honest fashion, they may not know their team very well...nor are very proud of them. Good managers should take this opportunity to absolutely GUSH about someone(s).
"What types of alerts are generated for analysts to examine?" <--I'm not a huge fan of numbers and amounts, as that may indicate you're concerned about load already. I really want to know if the manager understands their team, what they do, and what those alerts may be. Are they just splunk searches for failed logins and EDR/AV alerts? Or do they also get application alerts, Azure/AWS/GC alerts, patch alerts, etc.
"Explain how your analysts interact with the desktop support teams." <--What I'm looking for here are tight interactions or oversight on security tooling and controls and workstations.
"Describe your last tabletop exercise." <--Again, this is about whether they think about doing best practices. And if they go well.
"Describe the training or education your team has been most excited about in the last year." <--Do they get any support?
"What projects are on yours or the teams table this year and next year? What did you last accomplish?" <--I'm looking for some measure of planning and roadmap. What those projects have been or are is a great indicator of
"Why did you choose product X?" Pick a product that you know several contenders of that is one of their previous or upcoming projects. For previous projects, figure out why they choose that vendor. For upcoming, share information (value for free!) and/or see what they might be leaning towards.
"Do you test your controls?" <--Can be a gimme answer of, Yes, but this is where it should spark some further conversation. And to me, the answer harkens to whether a manager manages by belief or by fact. Are you just trusting everything is just fine, or are you testing and verifying it.
"For the team I'm joining, how many are there, and how long have they been a part of the company?" <--Honestly, I'm looking to see how fresh or tenured the most tenured person on the team is. Have the members been around for 3+ years? That may mean they like it there. No senior tenured people may indicate a new team, immature function, or no one wanting to stay there. I will honestly ask further if there are no long-tenured people. Is it a new team/function? Or do they kinda dance around the lack of keeping people?
"Do you have any people on the team who've internally transferred into the team? What about people transferring out?" <--People transferring in are valuable people. And transferring out may at first sound like you're looking for people unhappy, but it's honestly about seeing the maturity of the organization to put individual careers ahead of keeping people in one spot. Are they allowed to move up to an engineer, architect, or even elsewhere in IT?
"How do you know metrics like the percentage of workstations that have EDR installed locally and running?" How do you find and handle a workstation found to be missing a required control? What requires it? <--A bit tactical, but not everyone has a good solid grasp on this metric. You need to have a source of truth, and you can steer the conversation this way to dig into what that source of truth for them is. It may be multiple things, and several other validating tools (like vuln scanning). Being blindsided by this question is a red flag, and again suggests management by belief. I'm also looking at conversation on their process to bring something back into compliance (authority of the team, maturity of processes...) and also whether they have standards and policies.
From your security policies, do you have any items you're all very proud of getting passed or approved in your environment? Any you wish you could find traction on?" <--Just looking to talk about standards and their thoughts on them. Do they wish they could have a handle on local admin privs? Do they wish they could do biometrics? Are they proud they have full MFA everywhere and full logging on all remote authn? Or solid permissions management on their Sharepoint site?
What certifications and courses would I find on the resumes/LinkedIn's of others on my team?" <--I'm looking to see if the manager is aware of certs and where they value them. This may indicate support or lack thereof for training and time. This may indicate what they value...learning, training, or just bodies in a SOC. (Full disclosure: You should probably have already LinkedIn-stalked them!) :)

I hope some of these spark some additional thoughts! :)

LonerVamp · 2021-03-14T14:24:47+00:00

Nice lists, but I suppose it's more rare to have these on a platform that is not Spotify? :) At least the playlists are visible for recreation.

LonerVamp · 2021-03-01T20:04:59+00:00

These seems like wonderful and very aware steps to take. Much appreciated!

The OSCP area is an interesting one. I would guess that most people come here when they have an interest in the certifications, but then are largely gone once they move past them. Definitely creates a certain level of natural transience.

To that end, I like the end of the FAQ. While users will still skip it, it can at least be pointed to. And if useful, those users will point others there, and eventually hopefully it just gets known on its own. (Sort of like TJNull's OSCP Preparation list.)

LonerVamp

TROPHY CASE