As the year 2022 comes to a close, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on some of the highlights and challenges of the past 12 months. Overall, it was a year of ups and downs, but I’m grateful for all of the experiences and lessons learned along the way.
The year started off on a bit of a low note, coming off a bleak 2021. However, I knew that things could only go up from there. In February, I resumed school for my final year, but just a few weeks later, a strike was called by ASUU. Despite this disruption, I continued to learn more about web app security and even started exploring bug bounties as a way to apply my skills.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned when I accepted a job with a friend’s recommendation only to have the boss and my friend have a falling out a few weeks later. As a result, I was caught in the middle and ended up leaving the company. Undeterred, I decided to fully commit to bug bounties and found a few successes, including an account takeover due to test code making its way to production and a XXE & SSRF bug in an AWS EC2 cluster. Unfortunately, the latter was marked as a duplicate due to a staff member at Hackerone being involved in stealing reports and submitting them to the company before passing along the original report. As a result, I stepped away from Hackerone for a while.
However, I did have a major win later in the year when I helped a friend find a huge bug, and we were able to successfully report, escalate, and get it fixed. This experience only fueled my desire to continue learning and improving my skills in cybersecurity and cloud security.
In May, I decided to try and get a job again and applied to a few companies. One company, Versprite, showed interest and I went through a great interview process, but ultimately the offer could not be processed because I reside in Nigeria. However, during the interview process, I received a call from a friend about a remote job in the Netherlands and decided to apply. The interview process was solid, and I was offered a job at AMMP Technologies B.V. as a Data Pipeline Engineer. In this role, I have had the opportunity to develop, maintain, secure, and optimize our data pipeline, cloud environment, and external API. It has been a great experience, and even had the opportunity to visit Amsterdam for a team event (although visa delays prevented me from attending the main event in Paris).
On a personal level, it was a good year financially and in terms of my career. My oldest brother also gifted me an Xbox Series S, which I have enjoyed playing games like Halo Infinite, Forza, FIFA 23, and Call of Duty on. In addition, my other brother even got me an Apple Watch to celebrate my new job, which introduced me to the Apple ecosystem. He also moved to another country in late August, and while I will miss him, I am happy for the opportunities he has been able to pursue. I also resumed school, which has been a bit of a drag since I am uninterested and want to be done with it. Despite this, I am grateful for the education and opportunities it has provided.
Overall, 2022 was a year of ups and downs, but I am grateful for the experiences and lessons I have learned along the way. I am looking forward to continuing to learn and grow in my career in cybersecurity and excited for what the future holds.