This post has been a long time coming. DefCon 26 was one of the best experiences of my life. However, immediately after leaving, I suffered two great losses, back to back, and my family was going through a bit of a tough time. Now that the fog has somewhat lifted, I decided to reminisce about…
-
Accomplishment Alert!: Your New Security Analyst is Here
Yes, you read that correctly. Yesterday, I completed my first full month as a security analyst for a retail company. How I got here is a real whirlwind of events, but I’m here, I’m happy and I’m learning. I tweeted this in June: I cannot wait to one day refer to myself as a Security…
-
Took A Break and Came Back with a 100-day Challenge!
In every journey to greatness, you will face many kinds of obstacles. A seemingly trustworthy helper can turn out to be a thorn in your side. An underestimated individual can turn out to be a strong ally. A dream job could turn out to be hell on Earth. A safe job could turn out to…
-
Unofficial Tech-a-thon
Last Saturday, a small group of awesome women gathered together to lab virtually on Discord. Some of us were working on Splunk, some of us were working on exploits, some of us were working on creating a dual-boot system, and some of us were just following and contributing to conversation as they lived their lives.…
-
Steph & Splunk Part 2: Ay Yi Yi!
So, I hosted an unofficial tech-a-thon for women at the very last minute and it was amazing! More to come on that later. My project for the day was going to be deploying Splunk on my virtual machine and feeding logs from my desktop and laptop to my Splunk server. Then, I planned on purchasing…
-
New Event Coming Soon: Women In Tech-a-thon
“I just want an environment or a collaboration where I can work on projects alongside other tech individuals that want to lab and be technical but don’t want to do it alone or don’t know where to start. But I haven’t found that anywhere…” I trailed off in frustration. “So, be the change you wish…
-
The Effects of Sending the Ladder Down
October of 2017, after 4 years in the tech industry, I was about to give up. I was going to call it quits and never look back. I was tired of the politics, of the judgement, of the difficulty I had faced navigating the male-dominated terrain. I just wanted to do good work and learn…
-
QTNA: I Want To Be More Technical…Where Do I Start?
Welcome to a new series I’m starting called Questions That Need Answers, where I answer common questions I’ve received with opinions that are my own. From questions on where to start to get involved in tech to my opinions on being a black woman in the Tech industry and what that means. Last Saturday, I…
-
Steph & Splunk: The Introduction
In an attempt to improve my technical skills, make myself more marketable and get my hands dirty with a side project, I decided to dive into the world of Splunk. My mentor recommended I get intimate with the platform a little bit ago and now, I’m plunging in head first without a life raft…what could…
-
School Daze: Why I Picked WGU After Attending A Brick and Mortar University
In my Cryptography class, I always received my graded tests folded up vertically so that wandering eyes couldn’t see. You know that you’ve done poorly when your professor hands you back a test like that. Two months into the course and I hadn’t learned anything as cool as the name suggests. In fact, the course…