Articles
Practical notes on networks, security and IT careers, written from the help desk to the firewall.
Why 1,200 Users Pushed Me from IT Support into Security
The help desk is the best security classroom nobody talks about. Here is what it taught me, and why I followed it into cybersecurity.
When people ask how I got into cybersecurity, they usually expect a story about a hacking competition or a late-night breakthrough with a piece of code. My answer is less dramatic. I got into security because I spent two years keeping 1,200 people working. From 2022 to 2023 I was an IT Support Specialist at MAS Active Linea Intimo, a large apparel…
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DNS Is Usually the Problem: My 5-Check Troubleshooting Routine
When "the internet is down," DNS is often the real culprit. Here is the simple routine I use to prove it, or rule it out, in minutes.
There's an old joke in IT: "It's not DNS. There's no way it's DNS. It was DNS." It gets repeated so often because it keeps being true. When I worked as a Network Support Engineer at an internet service provider, a large share of "my internet isn't working" calls turned out not to be connection failures at all. The link was up. The router was fine…
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Urgency vs. Impact: How I Triaged Tickets on a Factory Floor
When everything feels urgent, a simple two-question matrix decides what gets fixed first. It's the same skill that sits at the heart of incident response.
On a help desk, the word "urgent" loses its meaning fast. Every caller's problem is the most important problem in the building, at least to them. And honestly, from where they sit, they're right. If your machine won't start, your workday has stopped. When I worked as an IT Support Specialist at a manufacturing plant with more than 1,200 users, I…
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Phishing Red Flags I'd Teach a New Hire on Day One
Most attacks start with a message, not a hack. These are the warning signs I'd want every new employee to recognize before they open their first email.
When I onboarded new users at a manufacturing plant with more than 1,200 people, my checklist was mostly practical: create the account, set up the machine, show them the systems they'd use and how to reach the help desk. Looking back, I'd add one more item to that checklist and give it as much time as everything else: how to recognize a phishing…
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My Home Lab: Pi-hole and WireGuard on Docker
A small Ubuntu server at home has taught me more about networking and security than any single course. Here's how it's built, and why every IT pro should have one.
Every IT professional I respect has a place where they're allowed to break things. For some, it's a test environment at work. For me, it's a small server at home. My home lab is an Ubuntu server running containerized services in Docker. The two services I use most are Pi-hole, which filters DNS for my whole network, and WireGuard, which gives me…
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ping, traceroute, nslookup: Three Commands That Close Most Tickets
You don't need expensive tools to diagnose most network problems. These three built-in commands answer the questions that matter, in order.
Network monitoring platforms and packet analyzers are powerful, and there's a time for them. But when someone calls to say "the network is slow" or "I can't reach the server," I start with three commands that come with every computer: ping, traceroute and nslookup. I used them constantly as a Network Support Engineer at an internet service…
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Why Digital Forensics Runs on Hashes (SHA-512 in Plain English)
In an investigation, evidence is only useful if you can prove nobody changed it. Hash functions are how investigators make that promise.
Imagine handing a hard drive to a court, an auditor or your company's legal team and saying, "This is exactly what was on the device when we collected it." The next question will be: "How do you know?" In digital forensics, that question matters as much as anything you find on the device. Digital evidence is easy to change, sometimes just by…
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Keeping Downtime Low When the Fix Belongs to a Vendor
Some problems you can't solve yourself. What you can control is how fast the right people get the right information, and what users do in the meantime.
Every IT team eventually meets a problem it can't solve alone. A printer needs a replacement board only the manufacturer supplies. A laptop is under warranty and must go back to the vendor. A specialized production system can only be serviced by its supplier. An internet outage sits entirely with the provider. When I worked as an IT Support…
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What Studying for CEH Taught Me, and What It Didn't
The Certified Ethical Hacker credential changed how I look at networks. It also showed me exactly where a certificate ends and real-world skill begins.
Certifications are a hot topic in cybersecurity. Some people see them as essential. Others dismiss them as expensive multiple-choice tests. After earning the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) credential from EC-Council, my view sits somewhere in between. Studying for CEH genuinely changed how I look at networks and systems. It also made it clear what…
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VPNs Explained: WireGuard vs. IPsec, Simply
Two of the most important VPN technologies take very different approaches to the same job. Here's how they work, where each fits and what I learned running WireGuard at home.
Most people know a VPN as the app they switch on before working from a coffee shop. Fewer people know what actually happens when they do, or why the technology behind their company's VPN might be completely different from the one they use at home. I run a WireGuard VPN in my home lab so I can reach my network securely from anywhere. In my…
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Least Privilege Starts at Onboarding: My Access Checklist
Access problems rarely begin with a breach. They begin on someone's first day, with a permission granted "just in case." Here's how to get it right from the start.
When I onboarded new users at a manufacturing plant with more than 1,200 people, each setup came with the same quiet pressure: get this person working today. Create the account, set up the machine, map the drives, add them to the right groups, show them the systems and move on to the next ticket. Under that pressure, the easiest decision is often…
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One Month of Pi-hole: What My Network Was Quietly Calling Home To
DNS filtering made the invisible traffic on my home network visible. Here's what a month of Pi-hole logs taught me about devices, privacy and detection.
Every device on a network is talking, all the time. Phones check for updates. Smart TVs report what's being watched. Apps send analytics. Browsers fetch ads and tracking scripts from dozens of domains on a single page. Most of this traffic is invisible to the people who own the devices. Running Pi-hole as the DNS server for my home network made…
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Documentation Is a Security Control
Nobody gets excited about writing things down. But undocumented systems are hard to secure, slow to recover and easy to attack. Good notes are a defence.
Ask IT professionals about their least favourite task, and documentation will be near the top of the list. It feels like a chore that slows down the "real work." It's often the first thing skipped when the ticket queue is long. I've come to see it differently. At an internet service provider, part of my role was creating detailed documentation of…
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Five Commands I Run First on Any New Linux Server
Before installing anything or changing a single setting, I spend a few minutes getting to know the machine. These five commands tell me what I'm working with.
Whether it's a fresh cloud instance, a server someone has handed over or a machine in my home lab, I follow the same habit before I change anything: I take a few minutes to understand what I'm looking at. What version is it running? Who can log in? What's listening on the network? What's using resources? What needs updating? The answers shape…
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Building Forensic Raptor: Android Forensics with Python and ADB
For my final-year engineering project, I built a command-line tool that images an Android device and searches it for e-commerce evidence. Here's how it works and what building it taught me.
Smartphones hold some of the most detailed records of people's lives: messages, locations, photos, contacts and, increasingly, their shopping. When an investigation involves online fraud, a disputed purchase or misuse of a company device, the evidence is often sitting on a phone. For my final-year project in the Bachelor of Engineering in Computer…
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Two Seneca Programs Later: Advice for the Next Cohort
I completed postgraduate programs in IT Project Management and Cybersecurity and Threat Management at Seneca Polytechnic. Here's what I'd tell anyone starting out.
Graduation day at Seneca Polytechnic was a proud moment. Standing in a red gown in front of the Seneca backdrop, I thought about how much had changed since I arrived in Toronto. I'd completed two postgraduate programs: IT Project Management in 2024 and Cybersecurity and Threat Management in 2025. I came to those programs with a Bachelor of…
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LAN or WAN? Telling Outages Apart in Two Minutes
"The network is down" can mean a dozen different things. A few quick questions and tests reveal whether the problem is inside the building or beyond it, and who needs to fix it.
Few phone calls create panic faster than "The network is down." In a manufacturing plant, that sentence can mean production lines waiting. At an internet service provider, it can mean dozens of customers calling at once. I've taken those calls in both environments: as a Network Support Engineer at an ISP and as an IT Support Specialist at a plant…
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Holiday Scam Season: A Short Guide to Share with Family
Every December, scammers take advantage of busy shoppers, delivery notifications and charitable giving. Here's a plain-language guide you can forward to anyone who isn't in IT.
Every year around the holidays, people in IT get the same kinds of messages from friends and family. "I got a text saying my package is held at customs. Is it real?" "This website has the gift I want at half price. Is it safe?" "Someone messaged me pretending to be my nephew and asking for money." The holiday season is prime time for scammers…
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My 2027 Learning Plan: Certifications, Labs and Goals
Security moves too fast to coast. Here's my plan for the year ahead, built around the roles I'm aiming for, and a simple framework you can use to build your own.
At the start of every year, I sit down and plan what I want to learn. Not a vague resolution like "get better at security," but a specific plan with goals, timelines and ways to prove progress. Cybersecurity and networking change quickly. New attack techniques appear, tools evolve and employer expectations shift. Without a plan, it's easy to spend…
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Patch Tuesday: Why IT Teams Plan Their Month Around It
On the second Tuesday of every month, a wave of security updates arrives. Here's what Patch Tuesday is, why it matters and how to build a patching routine that actually works.
If you work in IT, the second Tuesday of the month probably has a permanent place in your calendar. That's Patch Tuesday, the day Microsoft releases its regular monthly security updates. Many other vendors publish updates on the same day or around it. For IT and security teams, Patch Tuesday sets the rhythm of the month: review what's been…
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Four Docker Mistakes That Create Security Holes
Containers make it easy to run software quickly. They also make it easy to expose things you didn't mean to. Here are four common mistakes, and how I avoid them in my own lab.
Docker changed how I run software. In my home lab, an Ubuntu server runs Pi-hole for DNS filtering and WireGuard for VPN access, each in its own container. Deploying a new service takes minutes, rebuilding a broken one is simple and every configuration is written down in a Compose file. That convenience has a catch. Containers make it very easy to…
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You Can't Protect What You Don't Know You Own
Asset inventory sounds like paperwork. In practice, it's the foundation every other security control is built on. Here's what I learned managing equipment for a 1,200-user site.
Ask security professionals where to start improving an organization's security, and many will give the same answer: find out what you have. It sounds almost too basic. But you can't patch a laptop you don't know exists. You can't monitor a server nobody remembers setting up. You can't revoke access to an application nobody knew the company was…
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Incident Response in Plain Language: The Lifecycle, Step by Step
When something goes wrong, a clear process is what separates a contained incident from a crisis. Here's the incident response lifecycle explained without jargon.
No organization can prevent every security incident. Phishing emails get clicked. Vulnerabilities get exploited before patches are applied. Devices get lost. What separates a minor event from a major crisis is often not whether something happens, but how well the organization responds. That's what incident response is about: a planned, practised…
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Twelve Weeks of Writing About Security: What I Learned
Twenty-four articles on networks, security and IT careers. Here's what writing in public taught me, a look back at the series and an open invitation to ask me anything.
Twelve weeks ago, I published the first article in this series: a reflection on why supporting more than 1,200 users pushed me from IT support into cybersecurity. Since then, I've written twenty-four pieces covering networking fundamentals, security concepts, home lab projects, field lessons and career advice. This final article in the series…
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