Bootstrapping My CTF Journey

Welcome to the lab notes corner of my portfolio. I wanted the first post to set the expectation for what you can find here: practical takeaways from a cybersecurity student who spends most nights buried in reverse shells and binary puzzles.

My tooling checklist

• tmux session with pre-split panes for enumeration, notes, and shells
• rustscan → nmap for faster recon pass
• Password-store snippets for common payloads (SQLi, LDAP, SSTI)
• A scratchpad Obsidian vault that syncs to Git for versioned note taking

Keeping this checklist visible prevents me from skipping foundational steps when the clock is ticking.

Fast feedback loops

A trick I learned from competitive programming: optimize for iteration speed. For CTFs that means scripting everything—whether it is a quick Python wrapper for pwntools or a set of reusable Burp macros. The less time I spend retyping the same commands, the more brain-space I have for creative exploitation.

What to expect next

Future posts will include detailed walkthroughs, methodology breakdowns, and the occasional defensive perspective when I pivot into blue-team tooling. If there is a challenge or track you want me to cover, let me know!