Moshe Levy

🚨 New Video Just Dropped: Is CySA+ Worth It in 2026? 🤔 Cybersecurity certifications are evolving fast—and not all of them age well. In my latest video, I break down the CompTIA CySA+ certification and answer the 🎥 Watch the full video here: https://lnkd.in/exiWQ_Di question everyone’s asking: 👉 Is it still worth your time and money in 2026? I cover: • What CySA+ actually teaches today • How it compares to other certs in the current market • Who should (and shouldn’t) go for it • Real-world value for jobs and career growth If you're planning your next move in cybersecurity, this is something you’ll want to think about carefully before committing. Curious to hear your thoughts too—are certifications like CySA+ still relevant, or are skills outweighing certs now? #CyberSecurity #CySA #CompTIA #ITCertifications #CareerGrowth #Infosec

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*Behind the Scenes at SOC* Have you ever wondered how a SOC analyst actually uses all of those alerts? The fact is that alerts are just the beginning. Context is crucial. (1) Is this alert related to a test machine or a crucial server? (2) Is it an isolated incident or a component of a larger trend? (3) Does it align with user behavior or existing threat intelligence? A good SOC continuously separates noise from actual issues rather than just drowning in warnings. 👉 The next time you consider SOC work, keep in mind that it's about tales that are hidden in the data, not about alerts. #SOC #BlueTeam #InfoSec #CyberSecurity

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Sysadmin roles are growing. If you've been thinking about breaking into IT, the timing is perfect. But here's what I keep seeing after years of hiring and training people in this field: The candidates who don't get the role aren't lacking knowledge. They're lacking experience they can actually talk about. No home lab. No VM. Nothing they've built, broken, or figured out on their own. The ones who get hired? They have stories. Real ones. "I broke this and here's how I fixed it" "I recently completed this homelab project" "I've been tinkering with XYZ" That's the winning interview. It's why I teach the way I teach, practical, hands-on, in the environment. So that when you're sitting across from a hiring manager, you're not reaching for theory. You're drawing from something you've actually done. If you're hiring: ✅ what separates the candidates who get it from the ones who don't? ✅ If you're job hunting: what's the part of the interview that's hardest to prepare for? 👇 #sysadmin #networkengineer #ITcareers #techcareers #homelab

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CYBERSECURITY ROLES ARE IN HIGH DEMAND! • Security Analyst: $103,000 • Ethical Hacker: $121,500 • Security Engineer: $117,000 • Cloud Security Specialist: $126,000 • CISO (Chief Information Security Officer): $180,000+ Want to start a cybersecurity career? Follow these steps: Get Certified • Start with Security+, CEH, and CISSP. • Certifications improve job opportunities. • Learn Networking & Security Fundamentals • Understand encryption, firewalls, and VPNs. • Work with tools like Nmap, Wireshark, and Metasploit. • Gain Hands-On Practice • Use Hack The Box and TryHackMe. • Join Capture The Flag (CTF) competitions. • Build Work Experience • Look for entry-level IT security roles. You can’t be in charge of the bank security without knowing how banks security service works. • Freelance on Bugcrowd or HackerOne. Stay Updated & Network: • Follow cybersecurity news and connect with experts. • Attend DEFCON, Black Hat, and security conferences. 💡 Cloud security (AWS, Azure) is a must-have skill for cybersecurity professionals!

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I don’t know if every woman in cybersecurity knows this, but… …you can hire an assistant. I hired mine through Sundays who specializes in assistants for working parents. If you want to break into positions of power and influence, it’s almost a requirement. Think about it. High-earning male executives are overwhelmingly likely (71%) to have an assistant at work, and a stay-at-home spouse. They’ve got other people on top of… …paying bills …responding to emails …coordinating childcare …planning meals and nights out …researching what model of X to buy Meanwhile you’re out there trying to climb the ladder with the weight of caregiving and household management strapped to your chest. In a heteronormative relationship, your husband is likely to be working, and not likely to be sharing a proportionate about of the mental, domestic, and physical labor load. When I hired an assistant last fall, everything changed. - More time for myself - Less stress if work runs over - Tasks I don’t enjoy off my plate - Focus on things only I can truly do What could you do for yourself and your career with just 10 hours outsourced to someone else each month? What’s the one task you’d love to have someone else take over in your household? #womenincybersecurity #womenincyber #cybersecurity #fairplay

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Hands-On Labs Are the New Resume —— In today’s cybersecurity market, a resume full of bullet points ISN’T enough. ❌Employers aren’t just asking: “What did you study?” ➡️They’re asking: “What can you actually do?” That’s why hands-on labs have become the new resume. A candidate who can demonstrate: ✅ building a secure network in a VM ✅ detecting suspicious traffic in Wireshark ✅ running vulnerability scans and writing remediation steps ✅ mapping threats to MITRE ATT&CK ✅ documenting real incident response workflows …will stand out faster than someone listing “cybersecurity coursework” alone. Because cybersecurity is not a memorization field. It’s a performance field. Projects prove competence. Labs prove repetition. Execution proves readiness. ☝🏾Degrees matter. Certifications help. But evidence of skill is what opens doors. If you’re a student or aspiring professional: 🛑 only collecting credentials. Start collecting proof. Your lab environment is your portfolio. Your work is your leverage. What’s one project or lab you’ve built that you’re proud of? —- #Cybersecurity #HandsOnLearning #CyberLabs #CareerReadiness #CompTIA #SOCAnalyst #InformationSecurity #ProfSam

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I grew tired of using subpar study tools, so I created my own. Most of the CompTIA practice sites available are either overpriced, filled with irrelevant questions, or simply frustrating to use. After encountering this issue repeatedly, I decided to stop complaining and build something better. I created www.certiforged.com to make studying for certifications like A+, Network+, Security+, CySA+, and PenTest+ a little easier. There are thousands of questions you can use for free to quiz yourself and track your progress. There’s also an AI feature I added that lets you ask questions or get help with the material. That part isn’t free to run on my end, so there’s a small cost associated with using it. However, you can still derive significant value from the site without ever paying a cent. This is still early. I’m hoping that if enough people use it and like it, I can turn it into a proper mobile app. If you’re studying for a cert or just curious, check it out and let me know what you think: 👉 www.certiforged.com #CompTIA #cybersecurity #infosec #ITcertifications #studytools #edtech

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Just wrapped up CEH v12. The labs on lateral movement using PsExec and mimikatz were brutal but taught me more about Active Directory exploitation than any theory could. The module on LLMNR poisoning and SMB relay attacks finally clicked when I saw how Responder captures those NTLMv2 hashes in real-time. That "aha moment" when you understand why disabling LLMNR isn't just a checkbox but actually prevents credential harvesting. Most valuable takeaway: learning to think like an attacker to build better defenses. The OWASP Top 10 makes so much more sense when you've actually exploited SQL injection and XXS in a controlled environment. Now to put this into practice and keep the momentum going. #CyberSecurity #EthicalHacking #InfoSec #PenetrationTesting #CEH #CyberDefense #NetworkSecurity #VulnerabilityAssessment #ThreatHunting #RedTeam #BlueTeam #ApplicationSecurity #CloudSecurity #SecurityAwareness #CyberThreats #DFIR #SOC #SecurityResearcher #BugBounty #OSINT #MalwareAnalysis #RiskManagement #SecurityEngineer #CyberResilience #ZeroTrust #ThreatIntelligence #IAM #SIEM #SecurityOperations #IncidentResponse

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How to Get Started with Cybersecurity: A Guide Taught by Keith Alan Dickey Keith Alan Dickey, a self-taught cybersecurity specialist from Waterville, Maine, with over 1,300 days of dedicated hands-on learning, teaches these foundational steps through his community programs and practical demonstrations. Drawing from his expertise in ethical hacking, red team simulations, and system engineering—evidenced by 215 Microsoft badges, 103 Google badges, and four professional cybersecurity certificates—Dickey emphasizes accessible, zero-budget approaches to building skills. This guide outlines a structured path for beginners, incorporating real-world applications from his projects like DickeyOS and vulnerability assessments. 1. Understand the Fundamentals Begin by grasping core concepts such as confidentiality, integrity, and availability (the CIA triad), which form the basis of information security. Dickey teaches these through hands-on examples, like analyzing network traffic with free tools such as Wireshark to identify potential threats. Study basic terminology, including firewalls, encryption, and malware types. Recommended resources include free online courses on platforms like Coursera or Microsoft Learn, where Dickey himself earned his credentials. 2. Build a Strong Educational Foundation Pursue entry-level certifications to validate your knowledge. Dickey recommends starting with CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701), which covers domains like threats and vulnerabilities (22%), architecture and design (21%), implementation (25%), operations and incident response (20%), and governance, risk, and compliance (12%). He teaches preparation strategies by demonstrating exam-style scenarios in his Computers for Kids program, using donated hardware for simulations. Enroll in free or low-cost programs, such as Google's Cybersecurity Certificate on Coursera, which Dickey completed to advance his red team expertise. 3. Gain Practical Experience Hands-on practice is essential. Dickey instructs beginners to set up a home lab with free software like VirtualBox for virtual machines and Kali Linux for penetration testing tools. He demonstrates iterative system building—assembling, wiping, and rebuilding setups—to test vulnerabilities, as seen in his beta testing of Chrome OS Flex across multiple devices for enhanced security. Participate in capture-the-flag (CTF) challenges on platforms like Hack The Box or TryHackMe to apply concepts in controlled environments. 4. Develop Specialized Skills Focus on areas like network security, ethical hacking, and AI integration. Dickey teaches neural system development and NASA API integrations through his projects, such as Galactic Flight for space simulations and satellite communications testing on Pixel devices. Author your own protocol manuals, as

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In Semester 2, things got practical. Courses like Project Management and Research Methods sharpened my ability to organize chaos and find clarity in data. Meanwhile, back at the SOC, I was managing patch cycles, documenting ISO audit trails, and leading internal reviews. Suddenly, Gantt charts weren’t just classroom exercises; they became tools for managing real incident response workflows. 📌 Project Management taught me to lead SOC improvement initiatives step by step. 📌 Research Methods helped me analyze incident trends and back up decisions with data. 💡 Lesson: When theory meets practice, the classroom never leaves you; it lives in your work. 👉 How have you connected academic learning to your daily job?

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Your first few days in cybersecurity will humble you fast. Trust me, I thought passing Security+ made me an expert. When I got into my first job, I sat in meetings hearing acronyms and terms I’d never heard in my life. It felt like everyone was speaking a different language. I told someone, “I’m speaking English, they’re speaking Spanish.” He laughed and gave me one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever gotten: write down what you don’t know and look it up later. That simple habit helped me level up faster than anything else. Continuous learning isn’t optional in this field; it’s the game. Whether you’re new or seasoned, keep writing down what you don’t know and master it later. That’s how you grow in cybersecurity. #Cybersecurity #ContinuousLearning #CareerGrowth

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Lessons Learned this week: Lately I have been putting more focus on tackling alerts. I have been diving into the MYDFIR SOC Simulator, practicing determining alert acuity and the overall speed with which I tackle alerts. I've teamed up with another MYDFIR community member, Shahzeb Masroor and together we work through alerts and handing the true positives over to one another for investigation. The biggest takeaway or lesson learned this week was about baselining. Not just knowing the baseline of the network and endpoints we're monitoring, but understanding the baseline of the systems that we work with. Becoming more knowledgeable of operating system internals has been key. Most importantly, you just don't know what you don't know. In particular, I was used to hunting for scheduled tasks on the command line. Looking for a scheduled task executable in the Process Command line or files. I was clearly seeing the evidence of a task being run, but was unable to find what the task was or any proof. Then, I realized that this task was scheduled from the GUI and that changed everything. It was as profound as when I realized that explorer.exe launched from C:/Windows directory rather than system32. It's little things like this that I glossed over in the past that really changed things for my hunting. Understanding how these processes run and where they run from is such a simple way to spot red flags, and to know when processes are masquerading as something legitimate. 

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When I’m not deep in my cybersecurity studies or hands-on with projects, I’m usually looking for ways to stay "in the zone" even during my downtime. One of my favorite ways to entertain myself while still learning is by watching shows that actually take the time to narrate the depth of real-world cybersecurity. Top of my list at the moment? Mr. Robot🤖 If you’ve seen Mr. Robot, you know it’s not your typical "Hollywood hacking" show with glowing green text and magical tech stuffs or in-second breaches.😂 The show is so realistic, out of my curiosity I did a research and I found out the creator Sam Esmail, was said to have worked closely with cybersecurity experts to ensure the hacks were technically accurate. That explains the almost real-life scenarios and events.👏 Beyond the drama, there are some fundamental security lessons we can all apply to our personal and professional lives as a cybersecurity professional: 1. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 "𝐇𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐄𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭" 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐁𝐮𝐠 Technology rarely fails before people do. Social Engineering, the art of manipulating people into giving up information, is still the most effective exploit. You can have the best firewall in the world, but it won’t stop a human from clicking a "urgent" link. 2. 𝐏𝐡𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 = 𝐃𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲 We often focus so much on cloud security that we forget the physical world. ➔ Don't accept USBs from strangers: A "free gift card" file is often just a Trojan waiting to grant remote access to your webcam and files. ➔ Air-gapping works: In the show, Elliot hides data on physical CDs labeled as music. If it’s not on the network, it’s significantly harder to steal remotely. 3. 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐏𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚 𝐆𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞 Hackers don't need to steal your device to own your data. Spyware can be installed in minutes, often without a single notification. 4. 𝐂𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐨𝐨𝐫𝐬 If you aren't using Bluetooth, turn it off. Open connections are an invitation for attackers to pair a hidden keyboard and start running terminal commands on your machine before you even notice. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲: Cybersecurity isn't just for IT departments. It’s a mindset of staying vigilant, questioning the "too good to be true," and keeping your digital footprint small. #CyberSecurity #MrRobot #TechTips #InfoSec #DigitalPrivacy #SocialEngineering

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A lot of people in cybersecurity feel discouraged right now. You’ve applied, studied, and worked hard… but nothing’s happening. I get it. It sucks. I was there. But this field isn’t easy - and it’s not supposed to be. That doesn’t mean you’re not good enough. It just means you’re not there yet. You don’t have to copy everyone else - especially senior people. Your path can look different. Also, there’s no reason to be mad or talk bad about people just because you don’t agree. That doesn’t help anything. And let’s be real… LinkedIn is a professional platform - not Facebook where you act tough behind a screen and be rude. A lot of people quit too early. Don’t be one of them. 💻 Keep learning 🔐 Keep practicing 🚀 Keep going The people who make it are the ones who don’t quit.

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🚨 Ransomware in the ER: A Deep Dive into JoJo's Hospital Attack 🏥💻 In my latest investigation, I analyzed a real-world inspired ransomware incident targeting JoJo’s Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. The attack revealed a troubling chain of events that began with a fake ad and ended in stolen data and encrypted systems. 🔍 Key Findings: Initial access was gained through a fake "Raisin Kane’s" promo ad, leading employees to download infected documents. The first attacker group, SharkFin7, stole patient records and sold access to the LockByte ransomware gang. LockByte deployed lockbyte_ransomer.exe via a shared network folder, encrypting 6,420 files across 321 devices. Ransom demands reached $10,000 per patient, with threats to release Social Security numbers. Tools used included curl, Advanced IP Scanner, and targeted exfiltration of credentials and network diagrams. 🧠 Skills Applied: ✅ KQL (Kusto Query Language) for deep log investigation ✅ Network & Endpoint forensics ✅ Threat actor profiling and attribution ✅ Correlating multi-stage attack behavior across machines 💡 Takeaways: Even harmless-looking ads can lead to full-scale breaches. Credential misuse and shared folders can be high-risk entry points. Threat actors now collaborate: initial access brokers and ransomware groups are working hand-in-hand. 🛡️ This was part of my continuous journey into threat detection and response as a future SOC Analyst. Grateful for the tools, community, and curiosity that keep driving me to improve. 📄 Full write-up here:

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Too many SOC analysts spend years grinding, hoping someone will notice their work. That almost never happens. Most don't get stuck because they lack skill. They get stuck because they blend in. Nobody gets promoted for being invisible. I've watched talented SOC analysts stay at Tier 1 for years. It's never a skills problem. It's always about visibility. Here's what actually separates the analysts who move up fast: They document everything. Not because someone tells them to, but because they know investigation notes are their proof. When leadership asks for details, they have answers, not excuses. They ask "why" after closing tickets. Tier 1 closes alerts and moves on. Tier 2 pushes for the root cause. That gap isn't about clearance or job title. It's about curiosity. They build relationships outside the SOC. IR, threat intel, GRC. They learn from other teams, share insights, and pick up shortcuts nobody else sees. Suddenly, they're in the loop for bigger projects. They learn one tool deeply. Not ten tools at a shallow level. One tool so well they become the go-to person. When something breaks, everyone calls them first. They share what they learn. A tip in Slack. A quick walkthrough. A post like this. Teaching forces clarity and earns respect. People remember who helped them. The analysts who move up aren't the smartest in the room. They're the most intentional. If you're tired of grinding with no recognition, stop relying on hard work to speak for itself. Start being impossible to ignore. Which of these habits do you need to work on first? Drop a number below, or tag someone who needs a wake-up call. #SOCAnalyst #CyberSecurity #CareerGrowth

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