>samit_hota

Research

Notes from the field

Writing on offensive tradecraft, cloud security, threat intelligence, and what it actually takes to run a security program that survives contact with real attackers.

Career & Advisory

Pivoting from IT to Security: The Real Gap Isn't the Tech

Most IT professionals pivoting to security overestimate the tool gap and underestimate the structural shift from operational to adversarial thinking.

Aug 11, 2026#career
Career & Advisory

Stop Building Home Labs That Only Teach You How to Hack

Learn how to build a practical security home lab combining vulnerable targets with Sysmon and Loki to master real-world detection engineering.

Aug 10, 2026#homelab
Career & Advisory

Burnout in the SOC Is an Engineering Problem, Not a Staffing Shortage

Throwing headcount at broken security operations won't stop analyst churn until we address flawed detection pipelines and bad workflow design.

Aug 9, 2026#soc-operations
Career & Advisory

The Certification Trap: What Security Hiring Managers Actually Screen For

A look at why security certifications carry little weight in engineering debriefs, and what interview loops actually test for instead.

Aug 8, 2026#career
Career & Advisory

Beyond the Cheat Sheets: Fixing the Real Skill Gaps in OSCP Preparation

Stop memorizing exploit chains. Learn the exact pivoting, structured enumeration, and logging workflows required to pass practical pentesting exams.

Aug 7, 2026#oscp
Cloud Security

Hardening Kubernetes RBAC: Auditing and Downsizing ClusterRoles Safely

Learn how to audit over-privileged ClusterRoles using native tools and API audit logs, downscoping RBAC permissions without risking production downtime.

Aug 6, 2026#kubernetes
Cloud Security

The Identity Translation Layer Is Where Multi-Cloud Security Fails

Multi-cloud risk isn't about infrastructure complexity; it's the dangerous impedance mismatch between AWS, GCP, and Entra identity models.

Aug 5, 2026#cloud-security
Cloud Security

S3 Leaks Beyond ACLs: Audit Resource Policies and Access Points

Learn how to audit AWS S3 bucket policies, Access Points, and cross-account trusts using the AWS CLI and Access Analyzer before attackers find them.

Aug 4, 2026#aws
Cloud Security

The Seam of Failure: Why Identity Handoffs Break Cloud Security

The most dangerous vulnerabilities in cloud architecture exist not in provider code or customer apps, but in the identity handoff boundary between them.

Aug 3, 2026#cloud-security
Cloud Security

Stop Guessing IAM: Building AWS Least-Privilege Policies from CloudTrail History

Stop writing over-privileged AWS IAM policies manually. Learn how to generate precise, least-privilege policies automatically using IAM Access Analyzer.

Aug 2, 2026#aws
Threat Intelligence

A Triage Framework for Dark Web Alerts That Won't Burn Out Your SOC

Learn how to build an automated, 3-tier triage framework to filter dark web monitoring noise, escalate real threats, and protect small security teams.

Aug 1, 2026#threat-intel
Threat Intelligence

The Bureaucracy of Extortion: Where Real Leverage Lies in Ransomware Negotiations

An insider look at ransomware negotiations: who sits behind the chat window, how proof-of-decryption is weaponized, and where true leverage exists.

Jul 31, 2026#ransomware