One of the most basic things of course is to not click on links from places you don't know
Tell me how did you get into cyber security to begin with?
Okay
So theoretically so this may or may not happen sitting in the library as a junior higher can have a computer myself
looking at bank account information and I wondered
Hey if I change this number in the url up or down a number just in my browser. Would I get another user?
and with the major bank, it actually gave me the
The session of another user I was able to see the information. I instantly closed it out because I didn't get in trouble but
From an early age. I could see that cyber security was definitely something that some businesses need to
Work on more and it was actually very interesting and something I did not do again
Theoretically the first things I tried was back in the late 80s so back then the internet was very sparse
But I just try to tinker and mess around and was able to do some cool things and nowadays
There's just so much more out there so much more that someone can do there's so many different ways. It's like nowadays
There's web application
there's networking you can use fireshark or burp or
metasploit or so many different tools that you can specialize or learn a specific avenue of
hacking or red teaming
And specialize in that and one doesn't have to be knowledgeable in every single thing
What was like your first serious programming language?
I think uh python definitely and and i'm i'm glad that's the case python is just so helpful
It's used a lot
But it's also something that someone like me or a red teamer could use to write their own scripts to get things done
So it's definitely the first language I would recommend for someone that is interested in red teaming
So what is a red team operator and what what do you do to to make make your make your living? What's your craft?
so as a red team operator or a penetration tester one of my friends who's a programmer describes his job as he
builds legos and builds structures with legos a red teamer or penetration tester is a guy who smashes the legos so
That's one thing I love about my job is that I find the flaws and mistakes that developers put in there
Accidentally put into their their programs or applications and I exploit them destroy them and do what I can to
Take apart that program. So it's very satisfying it can be a job where something can be
Instant you find the entire database within a few minutes or it can be days of finding nothing. So it's almost like a
Detective work trying to uncover a puzzle. So it's definitely a
job, that's great for people who love solving riddles or puzzles or capture the flag type challenges because a lot of times the job is
Like doing capture the flag actually awesome
what's the difference between a penetration tester and a red team operator one of the
Main differences is a penetration
Test is generally a test where you're giving a given application or something. You're told to
to hack it in x amount of time and there's
There's a lot more
Prior scoping agreements of this is what i'm going to be hacking. This is the time i'm doing it
so for example for for a penetration test, it might be here's a
Website and you're going to spend one weekend you get a username and password or some sort of information from the website owner
They know exactly what's going on red teaming might be that someone who leads a company says
Hey, I want to see if my stuff is secure
And it's not just uh penetration testing is more i'm gonna do what I can just surf more
I'm gonna give you reports so it's like I see I can get a shell
I can get access to your thing. I'm gonna report this how I got access red teaming goes deeper than that
So it's all right now i've gotten access
Now what can I get? What kind of information can I get you continue to go deeper and deeper and red team operations can go
For months at a time like some summer like can be six months or something like that
Whereas a penetration test is usually a week or two
But red teaming is is oftentimes in the network trying to go deeper and deeper to simulate
What a threat actor would do and see how far they can get into the network
Yeah, like the penetration tester if you're doing physical security
Um, it's hey
We're gonna see if we get into the building
And we're gonna tell you how we got into the building and once we get in we'll report exactly what happened
Red teamer is all right, so we're gonna get in the building
We're not gonna tell you we did but once we're in the building, we're gonna try to steal everything we can
And put in more accesses so we can get into other parts of the building and then come back and continue to steal stuff
And then after months of work be like, hey, we stole all your information
This is how we did it and then bring it like bring it from there. So it's more of a in-depth type work
Can you walk me through the process of like what you would go to go through to maybe target?
A person or organization, okay
So if someone let's say let's target an individual first thing
That someone that physician would do would be to get as much open source information as possible
It's pretty easy to find someone's full name date of birth
last phone number
Address and all that kind of information. So once you have someone's email address you can send them emails that may have
Have us have malware in it or links to malware a lot of times
Those are really bad, but you send something a little better like hey your package has
Arrived, especially around christmas time or there's email
Hey
Here's your your ups tracking number with a link and that link can punch malware if you have someone's address you drive up their house
the way that wi-fi works is that you just connect to whatever has that name with the strongest signal so
You see what wi-fi signals coming out of their house have a device that provides a stronger wi-fi signal
And they're connected to you
and through you as a middleman in the middle to get to their
internet so it's like okay once they go to a
banking type website
let me
Pay attention to all the all the numbers they put in all the words
They put into that their username and password for just every website
They go to that may have any sort of significance
You can download any information on their computers having enough information about a person you can also create credit cards
Identity theft that person and you can also anyone else in their household identify steal their credit card information
Send emails in their name cause chaos post social media posts. You see celebrities sometimes blame hackers
don't know if that's always the case, but
You know, you can post as them and social media discredit them. Gotcha
What are the some of the salary ranges that you've seen kind of across the board for red teamers?
i'm not familiar with the entry level salaries the
The mid and upper salaries, so it's about 100 to 200 thousand dollars
Here's some two-second responses, right and just kind of off the top of your head vimer emacs
Best linux distro i'm just gonna say cali iphone or android android bash or powershell
Best hacker movie never seen a good one
Email provider of choice gmail
What recommendations would you say to to improve your own personal digital security one of the most basic things, of course
Is to not click on links from places
You don't know and also to click next whether it's on your cell phone or email instead of clicking a link
You can copy the address and see if the address is
Is actually where you think it's from and one piece of advice is to not have the same password for
definitely for all your websites because once your password is
Is uh compromised at say some random form or website you don't care about you don't want your banking
information compromised as well
if you have the same username and password everywhere something that's also very basic is just not to um connect to
random open wi-fi's that are they're singing around especially not doing that and then putting in your bank information talking about
places like coffee shops or or airports a lot of times even if the wi-fi says it's
The company you're at it could be someone else. That's that's faking that
and if you log into their wi-fi and put in your bank information, they can capture all your
Why information
There like an in-between between you and the website you're trying to reach