Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
Senior Cybersecurity Pentesting Engineer bridging hardware, cloud, and offensive security, now extending into AI workflow automation. At Accenture I reverse-engineer firmware, audit IoT and CPE hardware, debug at the metal, and build automated attack-simulation scripts. My SRE and DevOps foundation means I understand the pipelines and architectures behind the vulnerabilities I find, not just the exploits. As a former Teaching Assistant for Correlation One and edX (2U), I trained 200+ global students in offensive and defensive security and translated complex risk into remediation executives can act on. Over the past year I've built a five-project AI automation portfolio across n8n and Make: an inbox triage engine routing Gmail to HubSpot and Slack via a local LLM, a meeting-intelligence dispatcher turning transcripts into Notion docs and ClickUp tasks, a competitor-intelligence pipeline feeding Airtable and Mailchimp, a daily job-outreach aggregator with Ollama-generated messages, and a Notion executive travel planner. I work with Ollama (llama3.1:8b, local/private), prompt engineering, and JSON-schema constrained output. Core toolkit: Burp Suite, Ghidra, Binwalk, Frida, n8n, Make, Ollama, Python, Docker, Terraform, AWS, Azure. Open to remote AI automation, security, and SRE roles. Reach out: [email protected] Portfolio: portfolio.i0nai.co.za | GitHub: github.com/ander1044 | HackerRank: hackerrank.com/anben | HackThis: hackthis.co.uk/user/ander1044
- R&D & Hardware Lab Leadership: Direct physical security audits, automation protocols, and vulnerability analyses for emerging electronics, robotics, and prototype hardware platforms. - Hardware & IoT Pentesting: Extract and analyze device firmware utilizing hardware programmers and tools like Binwalk, Ghidra, and IDA; perform JTAG/UART hardware-level debugging. - Advanced Reverse Engineering & Mobile Security: Conduct deep-dive mobile application testing (iOS/Android) using Frida, Objection, and MobSF, ensuring alignment with OWASP MASVS guidelines. - Wireless & Radio Analysis: Execute wireless protocol assessments covering BLE sniffing/spoofing, WPA3, RFID/NFC cloning, and Software Defined Radio (SDR) research with RTL-SDR. - Mentorship & Strategy: Train and mentor junior and mid-level security engineers in technical testing workflows, reporting methodologies, and risk profiling.
- Web, API & Network Pentesting: Executed end-to-end security assessments on REST/SOAP APIs and web apps using Burp Suite, OWASP ZAP, Nuclei, and Swagger documentation; identified 20+ critical vulnerabilities across systems. - AppSec & DevSecOps Integration: Spearheaded the integration of automated SAST/DAST/SCA testing mechanisms (SonarQube, Semgrep) into enterprise software delivery pipelines. - Active Directory Security: Conducted internal network penetration tests and privilege escalation paths using Bloodhound, Chisel, Proxychains, and Kerberoasting assessments. - Exploit Scripting: Developed custom Python tools to safely simulate threat vectors, giving client-side developers reliable proof-of-concept indicators for patch validation.
- Curriculum Delivery & Hands-on Labs: Coached global students on network security, Linux administration, and offensive/defensive methodologies using custom-built virtualization sandboxes (VMware, VirtualBox). - DFIR & Threat Hunting Instruction: Led deep-dives into Digital Forensics & Incident Response (DFIR) workflows, instructing students on Volatility (memory forensics), Autopsy, Windows/Linux event logs, and active rule-writing (Snort, Splunk, ELK). - Host & AD Security Training: Guided students in setting up, identifying, and mitigating complex security threats, focusing on Active Directory attack methodologies (Kerberoasting, Pass-the-Hash) and secure network controls.
- Academic Mentoring & Advisory: Tutored remote students on global cybersecurity frameworks, strengthening technical understanding of foundational networking and active security operations center (SOC) monitoring. - Assessment & Evaluation: Evaluated student code submissions, risk analysis projects, and penetration testing workflows, providing structured guidance on technical accuracy and industry-standard formatting. - Risk & Controls Defense: Promoted secure software concepts and active defense, instructing remote cohorts on OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities, cryptography principles, and mitigations.