SIEM Shady@CDubbs@infosec.exchange
#Introduction
Brief:
I run cyber operations stuff for a privately held org. I also did military stuff for a pretty long time.
I like PC games, I'm fairly handy, love dogs, and other boring stuff.
#blueteam, #dfir
Verbose/Debug:
I was an 80's kid who picked up on tech quickly and was properly setting VCR clocks around age 8.
Fam was poor, so no high-tech stuff in house, but I met a friend in jr. high whose dad was a mechanical engineer at a national lab.
He had both an XT and an AT at home. Spent most summer days at his place messing around on PCs. When I would visit my grandfather, I would play games on my uncle's computer. He had a bookcase full of the old boxes. I started with stuff like Commander Keen, moved up to Elite Plus, and the Micro Prose games like Gunship/Gunship 2000 etc.
My first PC of my own was a hand-me-down Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer 3 with all the trimmings. Coded my first "game" that was basically a reflex trainer where you would use the joystick to move a cursor onto a target and it would show you how long it took.
Started doing pixel art for games that my 3 friends and I were making. One of them made a kickass sprite editor in C that I used to draw animations.
I then had a hand-me-down IBM from another uncle. Asked my mom to buy me WordPerfect and learned my first lesson in checking software requirements and opened software return policies.
Eventually, I got a brand new Cordata 80486 SX 25MHz.
Started helping my dad build computers for family and friends. The most common platform I built were AMD K6-2 based.
Got crappy grades and had no money, so I went in the Air Force as a mechanic on A-10s.
Got the nickname CDubbs.
It was meant to be ironic.
A cool rapper name for the nerdiest bomb loader on the line.
Almost made it into the full motion intro video for a planned A10 simulator game, but the game got cancelled.
Got out in Y2K to enroll in college and joined the Air Guard to help pay for it. Didn't want to major in computers because I was afraid to ruin my hobby, so I majored in Electrical Engineering.
9/11 happened and I was back in the mid-east 2 more times while trying to get college going. Colleges weren't very flexible then and it was tough to get things done.
A guy at my part time job that I often talked computers with was a tech support manager for a hospital group. He said he had to let someone go an encouraged me to apply. I was sick of scraping by and not knowing when I would get orders again so I took the job. $43k a year in 2004.
I worked my way up to technical architect and server team lead over about 8 years. Did a whole lot of vbscript to move digital mountains and it paid off. One project was to migrate thousands of excel docs with external data source links to a new access-based enumeration DFS structure that I put together. Had to open each password protected file and use simple logic to create the new link targets. With DFS in place, we would be less likely to update links.
Was proud that I showed two help desk techs turned server admins how to script. They both went on to teach PowerShell for Microsoft.
I also built an automated RBAC provisioning tool that combined data from a payroll system for employees and a custom web frontend (not mine) and SQL database (again, not mine) for non-employees. This allowed clinical technology staff (nurses turned IT) to provision Dr. Offices without access to AD. No budget for a real IDM tool.
Had leadership challenges at the hospital group and needed to make a change. When looking for jobs I focused on cleared positions until one "regular" job post caught my eye.
It was written beautifully. Reasonable experience requirements, relevant technology, related responsibilities that made sense. I've been at the same place ever since, now running security operations.