Introduction

 So let me first say thank you for joining me in this journey. I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself. First and foremost, I am not an English major, and this blog will not be perfect grammar. This will  act more like a journal entry style blog.  My name is Matthew and I am an Army veteran, a former barber, former motorcycle mechanic, a dad, husband, and recently I am finding a love for cyber red team activities.

I have been interested in cyber passively for some time, but never ally took it seriously. Then when we were quarantined for COVID I ended up losing my barbering business and kinda was thrown for a loop. For the better part of 2 decades barbering has been all I have known. Heck in most circles no one even knew my name, I was simply "The Barber." Now the next part is something that I am only going to share because it is relevant to my decision to explore cyber security as a career. 

As a veteran I have been diagnosed, like many, with PTSD. Being quarantined and stuck in a house kinda took a toll and I found it difficult after the quarantine was lifted to be in large crowds, which led to some dark times. Well one night in February I was out and about late at night (the only real time I could bring myself to leave the house), and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 5 individuals robbed me, stole my car, phone and wallet and then drained my bank accounts and ran up my credit cards.

But the only thing I could think about is how that could have gone way worse and how my 3 year old son really had only seen this person who was not contributing to society and whose anxiety was so high I couldn't even go into a store. So I reported my car stolen and as soon as the cop left I got on my computer. I signed up for help with ptsd and anxiety and then signed up for something called the Reveille Foundation. 

The Reveille Foundation works with Coursera and programs on there to get veterans education. I wasn't sure at first what I wanted to do I just knew I needed to learn something. I tried a few courses and then by accident clicked on the IBM Cybersecurity Analyst Certification and before you knew it I had worked on it for hours a day several days in a row and I thought well this is it this is what I am going to get into.

I got on LinkedIn started to network and got access to Dion Training and I was enjoying it but knew I wanted to see other avenues of cyber so I started to reach out talk to people and through suggestions checked out HacktheBox and TryHackMe and loved it. Then I talked to someone about mentoring me in the red team side of things. 

Now I admit I kinda knew what this meant but kinda is the key word. Then he suggested I try pentesterlab.com, so I did. And I was hooked. Since that day its all I can think about.

I wake up at 0330 to start working through the program, at 7 am I tune into the Daily Cyber Threat Brief with SimplyCyber, talk to everyone I can. If there are RedVSBlue games on I watch, if someone will teach me something I learn.

 I decided I am going to start this blog for a couple reason:

1) To document what all I have done and what I will be doing.

2) To share this new found passion in my own.

3) To inspire others who maybe for some reason are waiting 

4) To find others who are on this journey to and maybe we can walk it together. Share our resources, share our triumphs and struggles, motivate and challenge each other. And to challenge each other to be the best we possibly can. 


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