What is HackYour.Tech?

Introduction

Similar to our very first post, “Hello World”, we wanted to introduce HackYour.Tech once again as part of this “Behind the Scenes” project. To briefly introduce projects in general, they are collections of posts focusing on specific elements and areas that are better served together rather than standalone posts.

So, What Are We?

We are a cyber security focused blog run by two techs who currently work for a large consultancy firm. Our company deals with all aspects of IT and technology, but our daily focus is primarily set on areas including DevSecOps, Penetration Testing, Network Administration and a lot of code. Between us, we have different expertise, highlighted on our “About” page, but to break it down a little more generally, Gary focuses on AppSec (currently in DevSecOps) whereas Lewis is an infrastructure fan, with a focus on Windows.

Our Aim?

Our aim with HackYour.Tech is to create a space which not only brings knowledge to the community, but we are hoping it also brings value to businesses of any size. Having worked in both large and small companies, we have both amassed a bunch of knowledge about how companies do things (good and bad), the choices they make (good and bad) and the results (good and bad). This ranges between internal decisions for themselves, as well as decisions for paying customers.

Scrolling through LinkedIn, Twitter (X) or any other means of social media, you will always see good and bad when it comes to cyber security. Whether it’s highly technical professionals posting their extremely complicated brain dumps on vulnerabilities and exploits, or it’s someone who has ‘CHECK TEAM LEADER and BUG BOUNTY HUNTER’ in their bio but is actually a recruiter, you will see buzzwords and jargon used that may not make any sense to you - but as an industry, there seems to be an underlying assumption that everyone knows these, or everyone wants to buy something related to them. As technical resources within a large company, these terms are heard and communicated every day but if you are running or working for a small firm, you may be overwhelmed by technical buzzwords and not know what you are looking at.

Now there are naturally positives to not understanding something, and that is the chance to learn. The downside to this is time and a potentially overwhelming amount of resources to read through. Sadly, there probably isn’t a fix or solution here, but what we hope to offer are posts that are catered to all types of readers - to give enough technical information to understand how something works, but offer reasons as to why these solutions should be used or are beneficial. We are positive there will also be negative sections in our posts too, specifically reasons against a certain topic, but everything has its place!

What We Aren’t Going To Do…

We aren’t here to tell you exactly what to do. The beauty of technology is the freedom to ultimately do whatever you want. What we want to do is help highlight specific elements of cyber security, give some insight into what certain buzzwords and technical jargon mean, and with any luck, help you work towards making your next decision.

We Want To Learn!

One thing we want to make 100% clear, is we want to learn. We want to improve. We can’t do that without your input or feedback. If we get something wrong, or you feel we haven’t explained something well enough or have missed something you feel is crucial, let us know. We aren’t afraid to be wrong or to be told something different - so please, don’t keep it to yourself. Educate us and help us help the community!

Coming Up

As mentioned at the beginning, this is the first post of a ‘Behind the Scenes’ project surrounding HackYour.Tech. We want to give some insight into the tech stack we are running and building in the background, the choices we have made, what we are doing and plan to do, and most importantly, why we are doing them.