Who Am I ?
I build and analyze security systems focusing on detection engineering, threat hunting, incident investigation, and automation. I turn behavioral understanding of systems and attacker techniques into practical detection and response solutions. I also design CTF challenges and prototype tools to improve detection coverage and analyst workflows.
Professional Experience
Cybersecurity Researcher — Dakota State University
- Develop CTF challenges across crypto, reverse engineering, network defense, web exploitation, and forensics with documentation and walkthroughs.
- Integrate and test challenges in competition platforms to ensure functionality, balance, and player engagement.
Security Analyst Intern — Black Hills Information Security (BHIS)
- Performed frontline alert triage and investigations across Windows, Linux, and multi-cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP).
- Investigated endpoint compromise, lateral movement, suspicious PowerShell activity, credential access attempts, persistence mechanisms, and anomalous cloud identity/API behavior using SIEM, SOAR, and EDR.
- Coordinated documentation and improved response workflows; contributed to playbook standardization and detection-as-code initiatives.
- Collaborated with detection engineers to design and tune detections across multiple telemetry sources to reduce false positives.
Junior Security Analyst — Dakota State University
- Enhanced scalable logging and detection capabilities by optimizing Elastic Stack integrations for diverse telemetry.
- Built automated detection mechanisms leveraging threat intelligence and MITRE ATT&CK TTP modeling in SIEM and XDR.
- Automated Microsoft Sentinel and Defender XDR playbooks using Azure Logic Apps and integrated Teams messaging for multi-alert summarization.
- Developed a multi-metric scoring system (CVSS, SSVC, EPSS, CKEV) to prioritize vulnerability management strategies.
Education
- B.S. in Cyber Operations - Dakota State University (Jan '24 - Present)
- Recipient of the Student Research Initiative (SRI) Award for research titled "Hardware Side-Channel Security of Quantum System Controllers: A Timing Attack Perspective." (Six-month undergraduate research project)
Skills
- Detection & Response: Elastic Stack, Lima Charlie, Microsoft Defender, Detection-as-Code, proactive threat hunting
- Automation & Scripting: Python, Bash, PowerShell, Power Automate, Logic Apps, CI/CD
- Frameworks: MITRE ATT&CK, NIST, CISA
- Networking & OS: TCP/IP, Linux, Windows, macOS
- Vulnerability Management: Nessus, CVSS, SSVC, EPSS, CKEV
- Tools: Nmap, Metasploit, Elastic / Kibana, Limacharlie, Snort, Suricata, Wireshark, Burp Suite, Hashcat, Git
Extracurricular
- CTF Club leader; competed in NCAE Cyber Game, NSA Codebreaker, IEEE Cars CTF, Hivestorm
- Built a homelab for automated SIEM and detection engineering workflows (Elastic Stack, Security Onion)