Hi, I'm Nate

Cybersecurity Enthusiast
Mediocre Haxor
Worse than AI

Nathan May

Penetration Tester at UltraViolet Cyber

Passionate about all things cybersecurity, I enjoy taking every opportunity I can to learn and challenge myself. I have created this website to document new things I learn, projects I am working on, and writeups for competition challenges.

Competitions/CTFs

All Army CTF 2020

3/500+ Individually

ACICTF is an annual CTF run by the Army Cyber Institute at West Point Academy for members of the army to compete. Out of over 500 junior enlisted soliders, I placed 3rd individually.

MetaCTF 2020

10/646 Teams

Competing on a team of 4 university students, my team placed 10th out of 646 competing teams by solving challenges in the categories of binary exploitation, cryptography, forensics, reconnaissance, reverse engineering and web exploitation.

CCDC 2020

3/27 Universities

My junior year at Liberty University, I was the Network Administrator for the Cyber Defense Team which competed in the Mid-Atlantic Region.

CCDC 2021

3/23 Universities

My senior year at Liberty, our team placed 3rd out of 23 teams in a very competitive region. As the Windows team lead, I helped manage and secure the team's Windows systems.

Experiences

UltraViolet Cyber / Stage 2 Security

Jan 2023 - Present

Remote

Started my career as a penetration tester at Stage 2 Security which soon became a part of merger with three other companies to create UltraViolet Cyber. UltraViolet Cyber prides itself on having strong red and blue team skills, providing customers insight from both sides of the industry.

Penetration Tester

Jan 2023 - Present

Responsibilities:

Perform penetration tests for clients.
Assist with team tooling, process development, and automating tasks.

SecureStrux LLC

Jul 2020 - Dec 2022

Lancaster, PA

Securestrux is a cybersecurity company with deep roots in the DoD community. They provide specialized services in the areas of compliance, vulnerability management, cybersecurity strategies and engineering solutions.

Cybersecurity Analyst and Penetration Tester

May 2021 - Dec 2022

Responsibilities:

Perform security assessments for clients.
Assist with ACAS configuration.
Assist with Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) clients.

Jr IT Systems Administration

Jul 2020 - May 2021

Responsibilities:

Assist with Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) clients.
Design and configure network infrastructure.
Perform vulnerability assessments.

US Army National Guard

Nov 2017 - Nov 2023

Fort Belvoir, VA

The National Guard is a unique element of the U.S. military that serves both community and country. The Guard responds to domestic emergencies, overseas combat missions, counterdrug efforts, reconstruction missions and more.

Senior IT Specialist

May 2022 - Nov 2023

Responsibilities:

Lead other IT Specialists (25B) in configuring network/service stacks for the 29th ID.
Ensured soldiers needs were met and acted as proxy to senior leadership.

IT Specialist

Nov 2017 - May 2022

Responsibilities:

Set up and maintain satellite, ethernet and radio communications.
Configure networking stacks utilizing GRE tunneling, encryption, Palo Alto firewalls, and proxy services.

Brethren Village Retirement Community

Jun 2015 - Jan 2018

Lancaster, PA

Brethren Village is a retirement home for over 1,000 residents.

Technology Generalist

Jun 2015 - Jan 2018

Responsibilities:

Completed work orders for employees and residents.
Maintained provided services like internet, telephone, and television.
Upgraded/encrypted hardware and software of employee laptops.

Projects

Swakky

Creator

Automate SMTP checks in large environments.

professional

Nuclei 'Tings

Creator

Some nuclei templates made to check all the things!

professional

This Website :)

Creator

You’re lookin at it.

hobby

Recent Posts

OpenCanary

What is OpenCanary? OpenCanary is the free open source version of Canary, a popular and advanced honeypot. OpenCanary takes a different approach to intrusion detection. Instead of monitoring network traffic for known malicious actions and signatures, OpenCanary is system meant to be attractive to attackers that will alert an administrator when an attack is detected. Problems With Typical IDS If you have ever run an IDS like Snort, Suricata, Palo Alto, or similar, you know they flag a lot of traffic and make a lot of noise.

Monday, June 8, 2020 | 4 minutes Read

My PenTest+ Experience

About the PenTest+ Exam: The PenTest+ is among the more intermediate certifications offered by CompTIA and focuses primarily on penetration testing techniques and methodology. The exam has both practical hands on questions as well as traditional multiple choice questions to test both the knowledge and capability of testers. It is broken up into 5 primary sections Planning and Scoping - 15% Information Gathering and Vulnerability Scanning - 22% Attacks and Exploits - 30% Penetration Testing Tools - 17% Reporting and Communication - 16% For a quick comparison to other offensive side cyber certifications, it is generally regarded as being more difficult and hands on than the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH), and less difficult/hands on than the eLearnSecurity Junior Penetration Tester (eJPT).

Certification

Monday, June 8, 2020 | 3 minutes Read

My Favorite Resources

Favorite Resources General Learning Resources: Udemy - I use this for just about anything, certifications, new skills, hobbies, it really has everything. Never buy a course at full price, there are always sales where you can get the course for around $20 or less YouTube Channels HackerSploit for ethical hacking tools/techniques Lawrence Systems for network administration technologies Programming with Mosh for programming tutorials Linus Tech Tips for general hardware information Podcast Darknet Diaries (available on Spotify, iTunes, RSS and more) my all time favorite, cool stories about famous hacks, nation state APTs, and stories from notable hackers Unsupervised Learning more technical podcast about modern technology and cybersecurity Networking: Study-CCNA in conjunction with Cisco’s Packet Tracer can teach you everything you need to know regarding basic networking protocols and network engineering GNS3 - Network focused virtualization platform, more complex than Packet Tracer but supports other vendor platforms Linux: OverTheWire - Great place to get started learning basic Linux commands LinuxJourney - Interactive explanation of commands, utilities, processes, services, and all things linux Windows: Microsoft Learn - customize your learning track based off of experience and interests UnderTheWire - Interactive way to learn PowerShell Cybersecurity/Ethical Hacking TryHackMe - Hacking tutorials for beginners, includes instructions and lessons

Monday, June 8, 2020 | 2 minutes Read