What got me interested in CyberSecurity?
This question warrants a multi-part answer. So many things contributed to my love of Cysec. I couldn’t just narrow it down to one. So I’ll be sharing several instances and “awakenings” of my journey.
Think… How does the stereotypical ‘hacker’ get his or her start?
Huddled up in their mom’s basement cracking OSRS? Or how about griefing MC? Stealing and selling accounts? Yeah pretty much sums it up. Mine’s a bit different, still the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
So, what got me into CyberSecurity?
To answer that, I’ll have to take you back 10 years before this very moment. You see I had just started playing this wildly addictive and at the time popular Russian-based MMO game, called TankiOnline. As suggested by the name it was an online computer game about tanks. Like any MMO game, you’d play, earn money and experience, level up, repeat. So simple yet so addictive! I would play for hours on end. I got pretty good at it too… very good! I would participate in tournaments, pvp’s, and other modes all the time nonstop. It wasn’t until one time I joined a game and there I saw him.
“The cool guy”
This other “tanker” (player) had this weird sort of glitch that allowed his turret to have a no-reload time. Unlimited shots with zero cool down. I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever! I was a little upset too, because that also meant he was spam-killing the living hell out of everyone on the map, but it was still super cool to see! From that moment on for the next few years, I dedicated my life to finding out how he did it.
That’s when I was introduced to CheatEngine. Now at this point, I had learned that his glitch was just hacking (or him changing the value of the cooldown) and I had realized it was a lot more sophisticated than I thought. I had learned tools like CheatEngine and other virus-riddled software to try and emulate his swagger. Did it work? Not at all. But it was the thought of me trying that made it seem cool like I was some hacker. (A hacker who couldn’t figure out CheatEngine – go figure.) Nonetheless, I kept playing this game religiously.
Well up to my teen and middle school years. I’d play so much that I would start to fall back in school. A lot. So much so that my mother had taken away my electronics so I could focus on my grades. As you can imagine, I did not like that too much. Well back in the good old days around middle school years, my school had just gotten the infamous Google Chromebooks. You know, those small little black laptops running the iconic Chrome OS? Yeah… those. Without my daily fix of internet games, I had grown frustrated and more importantly, bored! My Tanki game withdrawal was not a fun time. Eventually, I decided I needed to play the game again!
Ground Zer0
So I looked up ways I could do that on the crap-top that is known as the school’s Chromebook. I found from some forum that If I found a way to factory reset my Chromebook, I could bypass school admin and security and not only play whatever I wanted but configure it to how I’d like it to be! I found out how to do just that! Back then I thought I was the coolest thing since hacked-robux but looking back at it all I did was configure the BIOS settings and then reboot the computer. Not too complicated at all. Still, I was on cloud 9. I could play my game again!
This was the first instance I could recall that saw me working around systems to get to my goal or in this case game. Of course, all good things must come to an end. My OPSEC was complete garbage because I just had to brag to my friends. Then of course I did the same thing to their computers too. They then got caught and I faced repercussions, but later on, I’d find multiple ways to do a similar bypass method.
Quick Reminder
But notice that I did get caught! It was a matter of time. Things done in the dark do come to light eventually, and I would rather be on the side that doesn’t face prison time! Thanks for reading! Until next time!