The course is getting more difficult, I am not sure if it is me overthinking things, or not overthinking enough but my brain hurts. I had a goal this weekend to complete Module 3 of the Networking course in my Cybersecurity Certificate program, but I didn’t anticipate getting sick. According to the doctor I am the proud sufferer of some random throat virus!

Last night I was able to get back on the horse and try the assignment again. I was having trouble understanding tcpdump logs when they were presented in the assignment. I wanted to know more, I wanted to know how to read everything for multiple different scenarios not just the one given. My learning style involves me knowing as many options as possible which helps me get a full comprehensive scope of the concept. I understand they are trying not to overwhelm people during the course but I was overwhelmed because I didn’t have enough information.

So how did I do it?

I started watching some videos on YouTube about tcpdump logs (although none gave a similar example to what I was seeing). I was looking at the log report and it seemed obvious to me that the darn thing ain’t working, but I didn’t know how to explain what I knew. I needed help. I reached out to my Discord friends and while I knew it was a DoS attack based on the context clues that was given before the assignment, my friend told me to check and make sure the DNS is turned on, plugged in, the firewall isn’t configured incorrectly. I forgot to check into the simple solutions since all I knew from the course was the extreme solution. Since everything is all self-run for the assignments I wanted to stay as honest as possible, but I still didn’t understand the full tcpdump log. Finally I logged into Chat-GPT and put the log code in. The first thing it did was give me a breakdown of everything I had already detected in my report. Then I was able to ask it about each section and have it explain in more detail each of the pieces and how it got to that conclusion. I finally was able to understand what I had learned! I kept asking it about the likelihood of the error being a DoS attack and it kept saying yes, it was a possibility but it was impossible to tell based on the scenario provided without checking the small stuff first. That made me feel much more confident about my answers!

It was like using Chat-GPT as a private tutor because as long as I knew how to describe my question, I would get an answer, if it misunderstood it, I could change my question. I had even checked with my company’s cybersecurity team on how to read a tcpdump log and they said they even have to look up what some of the logs mean, so I don’t feel too bad about using AI as a crutch to help me grade my own assignments since I don’t actually submit them to Google to be graded.

After finishing the tcpdump assignment, I was relieved so I called it a night. During lunch today I logged in again and started the Module up again… and hit another assignment, this one they anticipate it taking an hour… so I went back to work and had to deal with people provisioning access incorrectly without following the procedures that I wrote and they were reminded about it several times. It is infuriating when you are trying to explain the same thing to the same people all the time, it is really getting frustrating and kind of old now. Luckily, I kept my cool, snuggled a puppy, and reported it as needed.

I don’t want to complain about my job, I love it, there are just some parts that get a little frustrating because I do really care about what I do and it’s hard to see others not respect the position as much as I do.

Hopefully I will be able to get through this new assignment within the next day or two so I can have more to post on my site! I will post the last assignment here soon, but I have to go and grab the kiddo!