I’m Noah. I’m a penetration tester holding the OSCP+, HTB CPTS, a master’s degree in cybersecurity, and a handful of other certifications. I’ve spent the last five years studying this field pretty much full-time.

Why cybersecurity? At some point I had to pick a direction, psychology, coding, AI, or general IT. Instead of guessing, I did a lot of research, and I realized cybersecurity had all of it in one place. Psychology is in there as social engineering, which is a big part of why most attacks actually work. Coding is there to make the technical side easier. AI keeps getting more relevant. And general IT is basically the foundation the whole thing sits on. So I kind of lucked into a field that pulls together everything I was already interested in.

Along the way I picked up real experience, not just credentials. I ran an actual penetration testing engagement through Upwork — a real client, a real scope, and a real report at the end. And through most of college I tutored people in cybersecurity, which turned out to be one of the better things I did. Explaining this stuff to other people forced me to actually understand it, and it’s a big reason this site exists.

Right now I’m working toward a full-time remote penetration testing role, somewhere to take everything I’ve learned and turn it into real, long term value for the people I work for.