My name is Shane Kuziel. I’m a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps working in cyber security with an intelligence background.
My love for computers started around 10 years old, when getting yelled at to get off the internet for an expected phone call was a daily occurrence. I was a good kid by societal standards, but on this day I got in trouble for using the computer and my dad took the mouse to work with him. After my dad left, I remember thinking to myself “There has to be a way to do this without a mouse…” and that’s when I discovered how to navigate the computer using the keyboard and this amazing thing, the command prompt.
In 2010, I was faced with a harsh reality. I didn’t want to go to college and I had some job flipping burgers at your local fast food joint. One of my friends just got back from boot camp and convinced me to go have a conversation with a recruiter. Long story short, I enlisted into the Marine Corps as an 0231 Intelligence Specialist. Let me tell you right now, Intelligence was NOT a computer job. As much as I would like to blame not having the job that I wanted on the recruiter, it is 100 percent my fault for taking his word and not researching what the job entails, but I digress. Over the next 5 years I worked assiduously to get promoted and be the “go-to” guy. Then in 2015, after receiving multiple awards and attaining the rank of Sergeant it was time to re-enlist.
Knowing what I did, I decided to do a lat-move (change job specialties) to 0689 Cyber Security Technician. Now we’re getting to the good stuff. After completing the 0651 Data Technician school (a prerequisite) and the 0689 school, I was assigned to a Cyber Protection Team. Here I received my first exposure to the wonderful world of Penetration Testing / Red Teaming. With the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel near, it was from this moment that I began the preparation of my journey into both the civilian workforce and the wonderful world of penetration testing.
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