About me

I am aspiring to become a Security Operations Analyst. I feel I have the strongest experience and interests working with monitoring and alerting. Although not the only position I am interested in. I would bring value as a systems analyst as most of my experience in IT can be of great value to a company. I am also proficient with Cloud operations and Web server administration. Ideally, I would work some place that incorporated all of these areas and allowed me to grow further into my career.

My Story

I have been around technology since I was young. I took apart my Atari when I was about two, I remember since it didn’t work after I put it back together. Growing up I surrounded myself around people who enjoyed technology like myself and for any child that means video games. I was exposed to the joys of consoles and later to PCs.

 I built my first computer before heading off to college without any technical training. While in college for an unrelated field I discovered I had a real drive to understanding technology. I changed schools and majors to pursue those interests. I excelled in college graduating with a 3.9, second in my class.

After getting my first role in IT, I learned some hard lessons. Always make backups of data. I was tasked with updating a blackberry phone, and being inexperienced with those types of phones assumed it would be like any other phone and did not make a backup. This has been the only technology that I know of that wipes the data to apply updates, might be why they are practically non existent today, at least that is what I like to think. I was surrounded by some of the smartest people I’ve ever met, each sharing a piece of their knowledge with me. I excelled and was promoted within a year to help desk II and shortly after that was promoted into a server administration type role. I experienced a lot of doubt that I was in a position that I was not ready for. I stuck with it and ended up increasing my own knowledge in a lot of different areas.

When Covid struck I decided to take the opportunity to reestablish myself in California where I was signed on into an IT role and considering my vast knowledge, was able to make many positive changes within the company. I’ve implement many projects like changing the phone system for cost reduction to automating many time consuming tasks. I brought in a ticketing system for incident visibility, a change control process for accountability, security improvements, and process improvements to make department to department communication streamlined and efficient. During this time I also managed to complete a four-year degree mostly in part to my advance understanding of IT systems at an accelerated rate in Cyber Security. I have always worked inline with security, and I am looking forward to being Cybersecurity focused.

Work Experience

<Undisclosed> 2023-Current
Network and Security Technician | Cyber Security

• Azure and 365 Audits and remediation – Performed Microsoft best practice for a secured environment. Implementing Security Defaults, MFA, Conditional Access Policies, and review AD Health. Review failed login attempts, trace phishing emails, configured AD syncing. Configuring SPF, DKIM, DMARC.
• Firewall and Switch Administration – Managed security configuration and managed firmware updates. Configure VLANs, policies, VPNs, allow / block lists, track usage, correlated events.
• Security Recommendation – Recommended best practices based off Microsoft, NIST SP 800-171, and business workflows to provide a balance of usability with security.
• Cyber Insurance Quotes and Compliance – Assisted clients with Cyber Insurance forms. Performed routine checks to meet insurance compliance.
• PCI Compliance – Work with clients to meet PCI standards. Remediate any findings and submit results.
• HIPAA Compliance – Work with clients to meet HIPAA guidelines, including, minimizing exposed health data. Audit user access to privileged information.
• Azure Security – IAM access to resources. Secured access to Azure and confidential files.
• System Administration – Perform backups, snapshots, checkpoints. Manage Anti-Virus, Cisco Umbrellas, Huntress, CyberCNS, SAT and escalated user issues. Configured PAM user management.
• Security Events – Encryption Standardization of removing vulnerable ciphers, system checks of vulnerabilities released by NIST and remediation of vulnerabilities. Performed Risk Assessments and offer solutions.

GARBennett 2021-2023
Information Technology Specialist | Security Specialist

• Sophos Security MDR – Investigate issues such as encryption detection, security breaches, virus detections. Manage endpoint clients are up to date.
• Graylog SIEM – Conceptualized log collection. Pulled logs in a repository.
• Zoom – Designed phone network, migrated entire company. Managed all users, phone numbers, auto attendants, and security.
• Sharepoint – Implemented a Change Control page to promote visibility within IT especially with projects that affected the business.
• Azure – Managed users and groups. Controlled security design. Implemented and enforced 2FA for company.
• o365 – Managed licenses, users, groups. Managed webmail security. Managed rules, filters, and threats within administration panel.
• PRTG – Took over administration of monitoring and alerting. Redesigned entire layout including baselines, alerts triggers, and sensors. Promoted streamlined usage.
• Fresh Desk Ticketing Service – Researched, Proof of Concept, Implemented ticketing service. Managed agents and users. Implemented SSO and mail security. Managed automation (SOAR) for account creation and deletion.
• PowerShell – automation wherever possible. Created scripts to track password expirations, stagnant accounts, AD management, business signatures, and activity of users.
• Server Administration – Managed servers. Implemented WSUS, Print Server. Managed AD, DNS, File shares. Worked as part of a team on a semi-trusted Forest Domain as part of a merger. Managed GPOs for password policies, locked screens, ACLs.
• Documentation – Writing knowledge based articles for technical and non-technical people. This included security awareness tips, self-service troubleshooting, IT technical documents, and knowledge sharing documents.

Labs / Interests

• Black Hills Information classes on SOC Core Skills and Active Defense & Cyber Deception
• SimplyCyber GRC master class
• Learning additional scripting languages from Code Academy including Python, SQL, and HTML
• Listen to the Simply Cyber Daily threat briefing 
• Darknet Diaries
• Outpost Gray – Cyber Security within the Federal space.
• InfoSec Defensive Thursdays 
• ThreatGen Red vs Blue
• World of Haiku – Linux command line training
• Hack The Box