Certification
How I prepared for SC-200
Time it took: 1 month
I already had some SOC work experience with Microsoft Sentinel and Microsoft Defender. The exam still required focused preparation because
it covers multiple Microsoft Security products/tools and you have to understand how they all work together. This exam was very KQL focused.
My resources:
-Microsoft Learn
-John Savill's video's for understanding the theorie (highly recommend)
-hands-on lab practice (https://microsoftlearning.github.io/SC-200T00A-Microsoft-Security-Operations-Analyst/)
-kc7cyber for learning KQL
-Doing practice exams
My Final thoughts:
SC-200 was one of the most useful certifications I have studied for because it directly matched the work I want to do in cybersecurity.
By the time I took the exam, I felt much more confident using Microsoft Sentinel, Defender XDR, and KQL in real-world investigations.
Intrest
How did I get in touch with cybersecurity?
It all started when I discovered HackTheBox. At first, I was simply curious. The idea that you could break into a machine, find vulnerabilities, and think like an attacker immediately caught my attention. I started with the easier machines and spent almost every evening after school working through them.
Very quickly, it became more than just something interesting to do in my free time. I spent hours going through the Academy modules, reading writeups, watching tutorials, and trying again whenever I got stuck. Some machines took an entire evening just to find the user flag. Others took much longer. The challenge was frustrating at times, but that was exactly what made it addictive. Every time I solved something, I wanted to understand why it worked and how I could do it better the next time.
As I learned more, I became especially interested in how Windows systems and Active Directory environments work. I liked understanding how attackers move through a network, abuse misconfigurations, and escalate privileges. That eventually led me toward topics like Pass-the-Hash attacks, privilege escalation, enumeration, and Active Directory security. These subjects interested me so much that I eventually chose to build my graduation project around Pass-the-Hash attacks in Active Directory environments.
Over time, my interest shifted from only offensive security to also understanding the defensive side. I wanted to know not only how an attack works, but also how you detect it, investigate it, and stop it. That is what led me toward SOC work. I discovered that I enjoyed investigating suspicious activity, writing detections, analyzing logs, and understanding what really happened during an incident.
Today, my main interest is in blue team and cloud security. I am especially interested in Microsoft security technologies and cloud security architecture. My goal is to continue growing from SOC Analyst toward Security Engineer and eventually Cloud Security Architect, while continuing to learn more about both how attackers think and how organizations can defend themselves better.
Certification
How I prepared for CCNA
Time it took: 1 month
When I started studying for the Cisco CCNA certification, I already had a basic understanding of networking, but I wanted a much stronger foundation. I knew that understanding networks properly would also help me later in cybersecurity, because almost every security issue eventually involves networking.
My resources:
-The Cisco CCNA path
-Packet Tracer
-Jeremy's IT lab video course on Youtube
My Final thoughts:
The CCNA gave me a much stronger understanding of how networks actually work.
Even though I am now more focused on cybersecurity, the certification still helps me every day because:
-Better networking knowledge makes incident investigations easier
-Understanding routing and switching helps with firewall and network security work
-Troubleshooting skills are useful in every technical role
The combination that worked best for me was:
-Studying one topic at a time
-Practicing subnetting every day
-Building labs in Packet Tracer
-Troubleshooting broken configurations
-Using practice exams to find weak points