[0xD1CE] (0:00 - 0:28)

At that point I was kind of somewhat afraid of what was gonna happen with my position and started asking questions about Offensive security and red teaming took the OSCP on my own dime when I passed it. It was one of my most happiest times because it was my first offsec certification and Finally being able to feel like I can do something rather than just blue teaming I think for some people they do need to be spoon-fed at the end of the day You're responsible for your own career path and your own growth, right?

[Kyser Clark] (0:28 - 2:52)

Hi, I'm Kyser Clark and welcome to The Hacker's Cache, the show that decrypts the secrets of offensive security One bite at a time. Every week I invite you into the world of ethical hacking by interviewing leading offensive security practitioners If you are a penetration tester, bug bounty hunter, red teamer, or blue teamer who wants to better understand the modern hacker mindset Whether you are new or experienced, this show is for you. Hello.

Hello. Welcome to The Hacker's Cache My name is Kyser Clark. I've been in cybersecurity field for over six years now, and I currently work as a full-time penetration tester Today, I have a guest who wanted to be anonymous.

So we are going to call them by their handle which is OXD1CE, which is 0xD1CE. 0xD1CE got his start in Data Voice Technician He did that for about a half year then moved into IT Technician, did that for almost two years Then he went into Network Administration did that for eight years and then went into another Network and System Admin role for another eight years and Then moved into a Systems Engineer for five years and then became a penetration tester consultant Where he was there for just over two years and in his current position Which has been there for just over a year now where he's a senior penetration tester for a Fortune 100 company. For education No college degree, which is really cool to hear.

He went to trade school for IT And then for certifications, this is a long list. So get ready. We got the Office X Experience Penetration Tester That's the OSEP.

The Office X Certified Professional, that's the OSEP. The Practical Junior Web Pen Tester That's the PJWT, Web Application Penetration Tester for mining security The Practical Network Penetration Tester, that's the PNPT. The Office X Wireless Professional, that's the OSWP.

The Certified Red Team Operator That's the CRTO Certified Professional Penetration Tester, that's the ECPPT, that's for mining security. He's got the Microsoft Certified Azure Fundamentals and He has a pair of CCNAs. That's the Cisco Certified Network Associate He's got the Cisco CyberOps and the Routing and Switching and last but not least He's got the CompTIA Network Plus and A Plus.

So 0xD1CE, Thank you so much for taking your time doing this with me, unpack some of your experience and walk through your background Yeah, so first of all, thanks for inviting me on to the podcast It's an absolute pleasure.

[0xD1CE] (2:52 - 6:08)

A little bit about me. I go by 0xD1CE online. I started out not really knowing what I wanted to do career-wise until my parents started talking to me about this IT thing back in my High school years and I wasn't really I was always kind of into computers and tinkering, you know, even from a younger age Breaking and fixing things, setting up a home server But I guess I wasn't really aware that it could be a full-time job let alone a career.

So fast-forward a little bit I'm enrolled in a trade school starting for my A Plus, Network Plus, CCNA, etc And shortly after graduating from the trade school I landed my first job at a local MSP in my hometown doing help desk, PC tech type work and From there I was there for a few years until a opportunity opened up at a local nonprofit company where I was hired on as a network administrator and then eventually was promoted to a systems administrator and After a while, I finally reached a senior systems administrator position and while I was there I really Gained a lot of my core functional knowledge of how enterprise networks worked, how systems work Configuring firewalls, setting up networks from scratch Managing and deploying virtual and physical infrastructure as well as like dealing with change tickets and peer reviews And so I really grew a lot when I was there Skip forward about eight to ten years.

So somewhere in there I am working for a class one US railroad company as a systems engineer And that's where I started working more on the blue team analyzing splunk logs Responding to EDR alerts that type of that sort of thing and then around that time You know the big health scare COVID happened back in that 2019-2021 time frame and as you know pretty much everything kind of came to a halt around the world Let alone the shipping industry, you know, Semitrex wasn't really transporting goods as much trains were kind of delayed Because the cargo ships stuck on stuck in the harbor things like that And so at that point I was kind of somewhat afraid of what was gonna happen with my position Even though I was safe for the time being I wasn't really sure where things were going with COVID So I started hearing some different talks about people taking the OSCP from some of my co-workers in the office and started asking questions about offensive security and red teaming and some of these technologies that I haven't ever touched and so Eventually decided to give it a shot and took the OSCP on my own dime and long story short I started the material for about a month and scheduled and passed the exam on my first try and man, when I passed it, it was one of my was happiest times because it was my first offset certification and Finally being able to feel like I can do something rather than just blue teaming. It was it was awesome. So Now I'm working for a fortune 100 fortune 100 company as a internal pen tester where I do everything from mobile apps mobile pen tests even hardware pen tests Nice photo incredible story.

[Kyser Clark] (6:08 - 7:22)

Hey, I wanted to tell you about my new cyber security insider list where you get raw unfiltered Cyber security advice tips and hot takes plus exclusive first looks at my content delivered directly to your inbox Every single week no flow for spam just valuable content head over to Kyser Clark comm Newsletter and level up your cyber security knowledge today. Once again, that's Kyser Clark comm Newsletter. There's also a link in the description.

Alright now back to the show. Are you ready for the rap fire round? Sure, so the new audience members those don't know the rap fire questions 0xD1CE will have 30 seconds to answer five questions.

If he answers all five questions at 30 seconds, you will get a bonus six questions It's not related to cyber security. All right 0xD1CE your time will start as soon as I stop asking the first question. Here we go Do you think cyber security is underfunded in most organizations?

Yes favorite security conference Defcon most overrated cyber security certification The network plus Do you think this I do you think the cyber security industry is growing fast enough?

[0xD1CE] (7:23 - 7:36)

No most critical security vulnerability today That's a tough one I'm gonna cheap out. I'm gonna say luck for J.

[Kyser Clark] (7:38 - 8:05)

That was That was just over 30 seconds. I'm gonna give it to you because we're going over the internet and there's a you know There's latency and stuff. So I'm gonna give it to you So congratulations, you have completed the challenge and I've earned the right to answer a silly bonus question the silly bonus question you can provide is as much or as little explanation as you want and Here it is.

Is it pronounced gif or jif?

[0xD1CE] (8:06 - 8:08)

Oh Man, that's a hard one.

[Kyser Clark] (8:08 - 8:55)

Um, I In my opinion, I think it's pronounced gif Yeah, I agree with you that's 100% agree with you because my argument is you know, we don't call it a gif. We don't say hey Let me put some gif wrap on that gif, you know That's my argument there. All right, so I thought your most interesting response This is a little bit of a hot take so you said most overrated cyber security certification You said network plus and I'm gonna know why you think that network plus is an overrated cyber security certification Technically, it's not even a cyber security certification, but it is a common certification people get on their path in the cyber security

[0xD1CE] (8:56 - 9:23)

Right. I the reason why I think it's an overrated Certification is because there are so many companies especially starting out that are wanting to see your network plus you security plus Some of these lower level positions or certifications rather that yeah, they're great in the long term for a kind of a foundational knowledge, but they In pin testing and offensive security. They don't really do a ton for you

[Kyser Clark] (9:23 - 10:19)

Yeah, I agree that I mean, I feel like it's not like a hard requirement for the network plus I do think the network plus is pretty good for like learning networking basics Obviously you can learn them in other ways, but I'm a certification kind of person I need to have some sort of challenge to like kind of submit the information of my brain I feel like certifications help me with my posture syndrome because it's like I can read a book Three times and like do I really know this?

I don't know unless you actually give me some sort of exam or some sort of Test so that's why I went for well I went for the network plus is because I did the CCNA and I was like, well I'm I was I get the network plus because I've already kind of got the knowledge there But I usually I usually tell people to get the network plus before security plus I mean you can skip if you want to but I think the fundamentals are good But like you said for like his job requirements You know, there might be a couple jobs that asked for but it's not like, you know, like prestige like super proceeds or anything

[0xD1CE] (10:20 - 10:49)

Yeah, I agree. I mean it's just like the CEH, you know that's another certification that it just it doesn't really do a ton for you whenever you're actually doing this for a living and Yet they still have it on job listings and it doesn't really make sense in 2024 with the current landscape, especially with like TCM and some of their certifications that they have There's a lot better training out there for cyber security, especially in info sec, right for offensive security

[Kyser Clark] (10:51 - 12:02)

Yes, when you mentioned CEH because that's I asked this question on another episode before and The response was OSCP which was kind of mind-blowing to me because I love the OSCP but that's beside the point When I asked that the first time I said when I think of that question, you know most over a cyber security certification is a CEH like that would be my response to that question if someone asked me and But it's funny you say that because I actually had someone I went to Air Force Technical School with they got military They're trying to They got out of the military and they got into an IT role and they're trying to break into cyber security and was asking for Advice and all this stuff and asked me. Hey, does the CEH worth it?

I'm like, no, I don't I don't think the CEH is worth it And then he was like, well some company like declined me because I didn't have a CEH I was like really I was like, I did not know that but the reason why is because it's A DOD 8570 certification. So if you want to work for the government I would say the CEH is probably worth it if you are in like the government space, but especially at the federal government But other than that, I wouldn't I wouldn't go for it because I think it's kind of overrated and kind of overpriced Yeah, absolutely.

[0xD1CE] (12:02 - 12:14)

I agree. Am I allowed to ask your questions at all or kind of China? Yeah, I was gonna ask you what you what you think on the new OSCP plus because it isn't that DOD certified sir Certified too.

[Kyser Clark] (12:15 - 14:21)

So the OSCP plus isn't on the DOD 8570 List yet and someone told me that they're actually changing from DOD 8570 to something else and some other new requirement So it's not on that list yet but I think has a good shot at getting there and I think that's One of the major reasons why they would decide to roll out the OSCP plus So it's really hard to tell what's gonna happen with that. I think it's a good move because you know for It does open up more doors for OSCP plus holders but at the same time I feel like it's going to hurt people who just have a regular OSCP because When the security plus went from it went from good for life to one that you had to renew a lot Are not a lot but every three years, you know employers no longer respect the the good for life certification like they specifically want the Security plus CE which is because the CE version is on the DOD 8570 Because you have to renew it constantly, which is one of the requirements for that the DOD 8570 But because of that the security plus good for life It's technically good for life, but no one cares about it. So I i'm Worrying that the OSCP good for life falls into that camp, you know So that's my biggest concern and my other concern with OSCP plus is like I hate paying maintenance fees so i'm hoping that they're affordable which Let's be honest here if they probably won't be because you know offset stuff is really expensive And that's one of the bigger bigger pain points I mean if the maintenance fees aren't bad then that's a good thing because Then we can get a certification that helps us get into government positions if you're interested in government positions Which a lot of people are and let's be honest that the federal the u.s Federal government is the largest employer in the world So it does open up a lot of doors for anybody who has it so there's a lot of good and there is some potential cons, but we won't we won't know for sure until Until the dust settles because it might not ever end up on the DOD 8570 cert And and then it was all for nothing.

You know what I mean?

[0xD1CE] (14:21 - 14:21)

So right.

[Kyser Clark] (14:21 - 14:22)

Yeah, we'll have to wait and see

[0xD1CE] (14:23 - 14:47)

Yeah, I haven't done a ton of research on the the new certification myself, but I thought I heard somewhere that that's why they were uh expiring the you know, the typical oscp um And you know moving to this new model Um, I mean not to say that you can't have your standard oscp, but you know moving forward to be dod compliant I thought I heard that somewhere but I may be wrong So

[Kyser Clark] (14:49 - 15:25)

Yeah, I a lot of people are saying that a lot of people are saying that and I even said that in my oscp plus video Uh, but honestly, it's just speculation at this point. That's what people think That's why offset made a move and I mean offset did say they wanted to do.

What is the iso? one of the iso standards I forget the numbers, but they they specifically called out that and that's like a precursor to like being a dod 8570 certification, so Gotcha, I think I think that's Has a lot to do with it for sure. So you spent a lot of time in it Over 16 years.

I want to know like what made you go, you know from it to cyber security in particular

[0xD1CE] (15:25 - 16:25)

so I guess the short answer is covid but to um go a little more in depth, I guess the long answer is Whenever I started working for the railroad as a system engineer and taking on more of a blue team role where I was managing Splunk logs reviewing them responding to edr alerts that's whenever I started to get that spike of a passion for security and Was more interested in the security side of things rather than the traditional Networking and server infrastructure that I've been doing for the last 16 years and so whenever I started getting exposed to the industry as a whole I just started to do my own research and Start reading up on it and started talking to co-workers To gain their thoughts and kind of gain some mentors within the industry And that's really where I got my my interest to move more into security as a whole

[Kyser Clark] (16:25 - 16:35)

So you wanted that systems engineer role Do you count that as like a cyber security role or do you count like your first? Pen testing consulting role as your first cyber security role

[0xD1CE] (16:36 - 17:12)

So I would consider the system engineer role a security role But it was more of a infrastructure security role if you will where we're spinning up new firewalls Responding to certain edr alerts that correspond to servers that i'm over Things like that a little later on whenever I started doing consulting for pen testing um is whenever I started to kind of grow and expand my my knowledge and started putting some of that into more of a actual practice rather than Just in training

[Kyser Clark] (17:12 - 17:16)

And then so what made you go from your consulting role to your non-consulting role?

[0xD1CE] (17:17 - 17:47)

To be completely honest with you Consulting is so different than internal testing There's a certain play that you have as an internal tester that you don't have as a consultant and then just some of the the meetings and the Processes that you have to do in a consulting role Um that you don't have as an internal tester Um is what I would say is like the biggest factor for me wanting to go internal Versus staying in a consulting role is the non-consulting role.

[Kyser Clark] (17:47 - 17:48)

Is it slower pacing consulting?

[0xD1CE] (17:49 - 18:30)

Um, it's it's a little slower um, there's a lot more impact that I have within the company that I work for and being able to establish change within the company That I don't wouldn't have Um within a consulting role um, so it's It can differ a little bit, right? It can be a little fast paced depending on the type of engagement and the priority that we have for The particular engagement that i'm on for example, if i'm doing a hardware test It may be at a slightly different priority For compliance reasons to have tested than if i'm doing a web app test, for example

[Kyser Clark] (18:30 - 18:37)

Yeah, that makes sense and so do you see yourself ever going back to consulting or you kind of like being an internal tester way more

[0xD1CE] (18:38 - 18:56)

Yeah, I think for the company that i'm in I think I think I want to stay internal. I kind of dread having those uh, briefing and debriefing calls and going through that entire process so it's You know, there's a reason why i've been in it for so long and now security.

I've i'm not a uh, super people person.

[Kyser Clark] (18:56 - 19:46)

So There's a reason why i'm on the back end of things in the shadows so to speak Oh, man, you're uh, you're doing good on on this recording a lot, you know your voice You could be on a radio show. I think I think your voice is good for podcasting. So you're too kind you're too kind I've asked this question all the times this podcast, but it's one of the biggest challenges that i'm facing right now myself So i'm going to ask it again Because you have a unique insight that you know other people don't have and I want to get your your uh insight on this so For the os ep the offset experience penetration tester What are some tips you can give someone who has an os ep that's looking to get the os ep?

What are some tips to success? and um pitfalls that they can avoid like to get that certification So this may be somewhat of a hot take.

[0xD1CE] (19:46 - 20:26)

I don't think the labs actually do much justice for the uh, the exam I would say go through all the course material do a lot of research on your own Into the the content that you're learning in the material And try to build a lab of your own if you can right? A lot of the material covers av bypasses edr bypasses things like that start practicing on your own and get a feel for some of the lighter development work that you have to do to create your own custom Code to bypass edr things like that start Uh dabbling and doing research on your own.

[Kyser Clark] (20:26 - 20:40)

Why don't you think the labs prepare you? Because you're actually the first that is a hot take by the way It could be because everyone says that the labs like if you can do good in the labs, you'll do fine in the exam So i'm kind of curious why you think like the labs aren't that good?

[0xD1CE] (20:41 - 21:28)

So without I guess revealing too much information. I don't know if it's due to the different um exam environments But I actually it actually took me two times to pass the os ep The first time I failed miserably and it was I just had a hard time but I think looking back And taking it a second time. I think The labs were not exactly a one-to-one of what was in the exam And that's the only reason why I say they don't really do justice for the exam I think doing your research and kind of living and breathing that mentality of trying to bypass edr or av Is going to help you out far more than what the labs actually did That makes sense just by hot take

[Kyser Clark] (21:29 - 22:27)

No, I that I love hot takes that's why I always ask people to provide a hot ticket at the end of every episode So That's cool.

You say that and uh, you know that that opinion actually aligns with a lot of other offset certs Uh, I think the os ep is probably the only one where people are saying like yeah the labs, you know Correlate to the exam really well, but the os ep people say yeah I didn't learn nothing in those labs on the exam and then i'm i'm currently doing the oswa and I'm, like the labs are okay, but I just feel like I wish there was more in the labs uh, the reason why I passed os ep on my first try was because there was 50 something labs and then oswa only has eight and it's like I mean, I wish I had more practice So I kind of that that opinion definitely aligns with like other people's struggles with like the other offset certs for sure I have a co-worker did oswa and he's like, yeah, he's like Screw those labs

[0xD1CE] (22:27 - 23:02)

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, the oswa is actually one that i'm interested in taking i've uh been doing a lot more Api and web app testing in my current job than i've ever have But then again, you know, the company I work for is massive And you know, that's one technology or type of technology that is isn't really going anywhere So it's one of those things. I feel like if you're going to be successful as a Pin tester unless you're doing something very very specific uh You know position wise It's never going to hurt to learn web apps and api testing

[Kyser Clark] (23:04 - 24:02)

Yeah, I 100% agree with you i'm That I feel like just having a little bit of web app experience, even though I don't have a web app certification I'm still doing web app testing because I went to the oswa course and i've done the exam twice now and even though I haven't passed a lot of those techniques i'm using in my My day-to-day work on web app testing, but I totally agree with you It helps you land a position and then it helps you especially if you're in consulting because I would say Half of the work if not more than half the work in consulting is web apps So if you don't know what apps and you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot in my opinion If you're especially if you're trying to break in um, the only time you can really in my opinion, like you said Can avoid web apps is if you're in like a really specialized role or like an internal role, but most consulting roles from my understanding I've only been in two but from my understanding, you know, it's web apps are super prevalent and that's like the bulk of what Clients are asking companies to pen test

[0xD1CE] (24:03 - 24:40)

Yeah, one thing that we're seeing a lot more of within our work queue For the company I work for is ai pen tests bypassing guardrails and Prompt injection things like that. I don't know if you've seen anything like that in the consulting side But yeah, it's that's a whole new thing. That's coming up too that I don't feel like there's a ton of Knowledgeable testers out there in the industry So I feel like if that's that's something that you can learn and pick up.

I know port swigger has some labs for llm testing But I feel like there's not really a ton of people out there with that experience

[Kyser Clark] (24:42 - 25:49)

Yeah you are right, I think um, I agree with you there because I don't haven't done a whole lot of ai 10 testing however, I did do a web app that had a ai chat bot built into the web app and That's just something that's going to get put into almost every web application going forward Everybody's got oh we got an ai for that, you know So I feel like web app testers need to learn how to do the prompt injection and all those There's like a whole lot of top 10 for ai testing, but there's a lot of web apps that have ai built into them so learning how to Test ai is going to set you apart for in this field in my opinion and like I said there's not a lot of people that know how to do it and uh I think it's a good opportunity to jump onto you Especially if you're trying to break in the field or trying to stay relevant in the field so um, I think the hard part with learning how to Test ai is that there's not a lot of resources out there.

There's the porcelain academy that has the ai testing uh modules But I don't know any other like ai testing resources out there

[0xD1CE] (25:51 - 26:03)

Yeah, for sure hopefully there's a somebody in the industry that will come in and fill that gap like a tcm or Somebody that can actually provide some Cheap training but good training

[Kyser Clark] (26:03 - 26:43)

Yeah, i'm hoping tcm Jumps into that market because they already did they already have an iot hacking. They already have a mobile hacking So I feel like they like to jump in those like specialized pen testing areas And ai testing is a definitely a specialized testing area.

So that would be Really cool if they jumped into that I think it's needed in this industry very badly so the first one to make a certification for ai pen testing, I think it's a They're gonna be they're gonna be in a pretty good shape But let's go ahead and get into the last question. So the final question of every episode is Do you have any additional cybersecurity hot takes or hidden wisdom you would like to share with the audience?

[0xD1CE] (26:43 - 26:47)

You know for once I don't I think i'm gonna be your first guest. I don't think I have anything for you, sir

[Kyser Clark] (26:50 - 28:32)

Oh, all right, we gotta drop a nugget bomb so I started a new thing audience And it is my email newsletter and the way you sign up to my email newsletter Is you go to my website Kyserclark.com you put your email in there and you give me your email And every monday I give all my email subscribers my fresh piece of content that doesn't touch my youtube channel my podcast and my Blog, so it's it's timed exclusive So this stuff might make it a waste to the youtube channel or the blog post and the podcast But the email that I sent today was Baby cyber security enthusiast by the time this episode hits that email was sent out a month ago So it's still timed exclusive content. So i'm just going to go ahead and say this what I mean by baby cyber security enthusiast is I get a lot of questions about like how to break in the field I get a lot of I feel like I get a lot of the same questions and I think a lot of content to answer these questions And I feel like people just aren't getting it I don't know what it is, but I feel like a lot of people need to be spoon-fed information And sometimes it drives me nuts. It drives me a little bit nuts.

So here's my word of wisdom You have to be able to think for yourself Right. You can't be expected someone to spoon feed you answers all the time. It's okay to ask questions But when it's a common question the chances of me answering the question if you dive in my dms is going to be slim because i've already answered the question in A podcast or a video or one of my live streams So I would say consume my content before you ask me questions in my dms because I can't reply to everybody unfortunately And that's a little bit of a hot take but and it's wasn't at the same time

[0xD1CE] (28:32 - 29:29)

So, what do you think about that 0xD1CE? You know, I think I think you're spot on with that I think for some people they do need to be spoon-fed at the end of the day You're responsible for your own career path and your own growth, right? And if you are truly interested in a subject Whether it be learning a language learning infosec learning pentesting.

What what have you at the end of the day? It's up to you as the person to grow your path and Become another professional So do your research don't be afraid to google things Don't be afraid to ask things and if you can help mentor somebody who's coming up beside you sometimes Teaching somebody that you already know actually opens the gate for yourself Um, I mean know it may seem a little bit backwards but help mentor the next generation of infosec people that are coming up There are where you are two years ago, you know, we're always learning and growing so help the next generation

[Kyser Clark] (29:29 - 30:16)

Good words to live by. All right 0xD1CE if the audience wants to get a hold of you I know you wanted to be anonymous, but that is your online, you know So i'm assuming they can get a hold of you if they want. Is that is that okay or If you can find me you can contact me He He is a ghost in the wires ladies and gentlemen, if you want to get a hold of me audience LinkedIn is best place to get a hold of me and also all my contact information is on my website Kyserclark.com Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening If you haven't already reviewed the show if you're listening on spotify or podcast do me a favor Leave a review leave a five-star review if you think the show deserves it if you're watching on youtube Hit the like button and subscribe to the channel until then i'll catch you on the next episode. This is Kyser signing off