[{"content":" About Me # I\u0026rsquo;m a Cybersecurity Analytics and Operations major at Penn State, set to graduate in 2027. I learn best by taking things apart and rebuilding them, and that\u0026rsquo;s basically how I ended up in this field: I was the \u0026ldquo;tech support kid\u0026rdquo; in my family growing up, and that turned into a real interest in how systems break and how you secure them. Outside of classes and campus involvement, I follow meteorology, I\u0026rsquo;m active in student government, and I try to spend as much time outdoors as I can.\nWhat I do # University Park Undergraduate Association # I\u0026rsquo;m an At-Large Representative for UPUA, one of 20 student voices representing over 42,000 undergraduates at Penn State. That means talking to students about what\u0026rsquo;s actually bothering them, raising it with administration, and working with other student groups and university departments on policy and events, things like community engagement initiatives and student well-being programs.\nCompetitive Cybersecurity Organization # CCSO is Penn State\u0026rsquo;s competitive cybersecurity club: small, close-knit, and focused on ethical hacking, digital forensics, and getting people ready for competitions like MACCDC and CPTC through workshops and hands-on training. We\u0026rsquo;ve had a strong run of competition results over the past couple of years, and the club has become one of the main places on campus where people interested in security actually work on it together instead of just talking about it.\n","date":"1 July 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"","summary":"","title":"","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"1 July 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/careerupdate/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"CareerUpdate","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 July 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/certification/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Certification","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"1 July 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cybersecurity/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Cybersecurity","type":"tags"},{"content":"Quick update: I passed my CompTIA Security+ exam this month.\nIt\u0026rsquo;s a foundational cert, and most of what it covers I\u0026rsquo;d already picked up hands-on through CCSO competitions and my internships. Still, there\u0026rsquo;s real value in having the paperwork line up with the practical experience, especially with recruiters and clients who look for it as a baseline check. Good timing too, landing right as I start my Advisory Red co-op at Security Risk Advisors.\n","date":"1 July 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/comptia-security-plus/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Passed CompTIA Security+","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"1 July 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Posts","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"1 July 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/blueteam/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"BlueTeam","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ccso/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"CCSO","type":"tags"},{"content":"CCSO just wrapped up our second Red v. Blue Competition, which I organized this year.\nWhat it is # Red v. Blue is a live blue team competition: teams go head-to-head, scored on service uptime, incident response submissions, and business and technical injects, all while an active red team works against every team\u0026rsquo;s environment for the entire event. Learning defensive concepts in a classroom is one thing; applying them when services are actively going down and alerts are firing in real time is a completely different skill, and that gap is exactly what this event is built to close.\nGrowing the program # This year\u0026rsquo;s event featured a team from Penn State Harrisburg for the first time. The goal is to keep expanding: more Commonwealth campuses next, then statewide, and eventually national.\nRunning it # Aiden Johnson and Isabella Masso handled infrastructure, and Nicklaus Giacobe and Matt Ruff served as our Orange Team, keeping score and adjudicating disputes. The red team went all-out to make it a real challenge for every team on the blue side.\nOrganizing this instead of competing in it was a different kind of pressure: you\u0026rsquo;re not defending a network, you\u0026rsquo;re making sure the event itself holds together while thirty-plus people hammer on infrastructure you built. It went well, and I\u0026rsquo;m already thinking about what to change for next year.\n","date":"20 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ccso-red-v-blue-2026/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Organizing CCSO's Second Red v. Blue Competition","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"20 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/pennstate/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"PennState","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"20 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/redteam/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"RedTeam","type":"tags"},{"content":"This summer I started as an Advisory Red Co-op with Security Risk Advisors (SRA) in Philadelphia, my first role fully on the offensive side in industry.\nI\u0026rsquo;m on SRA\u0026rsquo;s Advisory Red team contributing to penetration testing, web and application security assessments, and other red team engagements alongside people who do this for a living every day. It\u0026rsquo;s a different pace than a CCDC weekend or a CPTC report deadline: the scope is bigger, the clients are real, and the stakes for getting a finding right (and explaining it clearly) are higher. So far that\u0026rsquo;s exactly the adjustment I was hoping for.\nThis is running alongside my ongoing DevSecOps work at Penn State\u0026rsquo;s Applied Research Laboratory, where I\u0026rsquo;ve spent the last year and a half helping build secure, automated infrastructure for HPC environments. Between the two, I\u0026rsquo;m getting to see security from the build-it-securely side and the break-it side in the same year, which has already made me better at both.\nGrateful to everyone who helped get me here, and looking forward to spending the summer in Philly building on everything CCSO has taught me. More updates as the season continues.\n","date":"15 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/sra-advisory-red-coop/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"New Chapter: Advisory Red Co-op at Security Risk Advisors","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"15 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/penetrationtesting/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"PenetrationTesting","type":"tags"},{"content":"CCSO placed 3rd at this year\u0026rsquo;s Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (MACCDC).\nNine systems, 37 injects, one active red team # Our team managed a network of nine systems (a router, two firewalls, three Windows servers, and three Linux servers) while working through 37 injects spanning both technical and business scenarios. The whole time, the red team had free rein to probe, exploit, and disrupt whatever they could find. Holding a top-three finish under those conditions took the whole team staying sharp for the entire competition window.\nThe team # Congratulations to everyone who competed: Aidan Ethier (captain), Aiden Johnson, Evan Glickman, Daniel Thiriot, Isabella Masso, Asa Reynolds, Dhrupad Joshi, and me.\nThis is the same event where CCSO made history two years ago with a historic 2nd-place regional finish: the program keeps getting deeper, and it shows.\n","date":"10 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/maccdc-2026/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"3rd Place at MACCDC 2026","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"10 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ccdc/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"CCDC","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 April 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/maccdc/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"MACCDC","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"10 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/ai/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"AI","type":"tags"},{"content":"A bit of a departure from competitive cybersecurity, but too good not to mention: Penn State\u0026rsquo;s Lion-0xA team was selected as one of just ten teams worldwide, out of hundreds of submissions, to advance to the global finals of Amazon\u0026rsquo;s Nova AI Challenge, and I\u0026rsquo;m part of the team.\nWhat the challenge is # The Nova AI Challenge pits university teams against each other with a shared goal: making AI agents better and safer. It\u0026rsquo;s a cross-college effort at Penn State, pulling together students from the College of Information Sciences and Technology and the College of Engineering, and the tournament runs for nine months against nine other finalist teams for real prize money.\nThe team # Lion-0xA is Md (Mohammed) Toufikuzzaman, Tianrong Zhang, Chaewan Chun, Durva Dev, Owen Dransfield, Ali Al-Lawati, Jason Lucas, Tanishka Mali, Jiaxi Yang, and me, a genuinely cross-disciplinary group, and that mix has been half the fun of it. Being selected from hundreds of submissions worldwide to be one of ten global finalists is a huge honor for the program, and I\u0026rsquo;m looking forward to sharing more as the tournament progresses over the next several months.\n","date":"10 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/amazon-nova-ai-challenge/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Global Finalist: Penn State's Lion-0xA in the Amazon Nova AI Challenge","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"10 March 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/security/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Security","type":"tags"},{"content":"This year, our CyberLions-A team placed 5th out of 93 teams at the U.S. Department of Energy\u0026rsquo;s CyberForce® Program, up against some of the strongest collegiate cybersecurity programs in the country.\nAn oil rig, a live red team, and a month of prep # CyberForce is a month-long competition that culminates in an intense, in-person scenario. This year\u0026rsquo;s theme was an offshore oil rig with a Modbus OT network we had to keep running while a live red team actively tried to take it down, on top of general cyber defense, system configuration, and a \u0026ldquo;green team\u0026rdquo; throwing realistic end-user requests at us throughout.\nI worked the SIEM seat, which meant living in the logs for the duration of the event: watching for attacker behavior in real time, documenting it, and helping guide our defensive calls as things unfolded live.\nThe team # CyberLions-A: Aidan Ethier (captain), Owen Dransfield, Asa Reynolds, Haidyn DiPaolo, Glen Ankney, and me. Our CyberLions-B team also improved significantly, jumping to 16th overall from 24th the year before.\nThanks to Nicklaus Giacobe and Matt Ruff for coaching both teams through it: coordinating two six-person squads through a national competition is no small task on the advisor side either.\n","date":"8 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/doe-cyberforce-2025/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"5th out of 93 Teams at DOE CyberForce","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"8 December 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cyberforce/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"CyberForce","type":"tags"},{"content":"This fall, my team at the Penn State Competitive Cyber Security Organization placed 3rd at the Global Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition\u0026rsquo;s (CPTC) New England regional, hosted at the University of New Haven.\nThe grind # Over fourteen hours, we tested a realistic enterprise network for vulnerabilities, fielded live business-side curveballs on top of the technical work, and put together a sixty-page findings report, the kind of deliverable a real client would actually receive after an engagement. Out of ten universities competing, we finished 3rd.\nThe team # Huge credit to Jonathan Skeete, Brady McLaughlin, Asa Reynolds, Owen Dransfield, and Dhrupad Joshi for the months of prep that went into this, and to our faculty advisors Nicklaus Giacobe and Matt Ruff for their constant support.\nThis regional finish keeps us in the mix heading toward the Global Finals: last year\u0026rsquo;s team made history with a 3rd-place global finish, and this year\u0026rsquo;s group is aiming to build on that.\n","date":"20 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/cptc-new-england-2025/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"3rd Place at CPTC New England Regionals","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"20 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/cptc/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"CPTC","type":"tags"},{"content":"I spent a stretch this fall leading a Red Team workshop track for the Penn State Competitive Cyber Security Organization, using OWASP Juice Shop as the target.\nJuice Shop is an intentionally vulnerable web app with 60+ flaws baked in, everything from XSS and SQL injection to broken authentication and insecure deserialization. It\u0026rsquo;s a great teaching tool because the flaws are realistic, but the app is safe to tear apart without consequences.\nFrom request tampering to full exploitation # We started with the basics: intercepting and tampering with requests, understanding how client-side checks can be bypassed, and reading server responses closely enough to spot what\u0026rsquo;s actually being validated (and what isn\u0026rsquo;t). By the end of the series, members who\u0026rsquo;d never touched a proxy tool before were pulling off full session hijacks and exploiting the database directly.\nWatching that progression across 30+ members in a matter of weeks was one of the more satisfying things I\u0026rsquo;ve done with the club. It\u0026rsquo;s one thing to know an attack technique yourself. It\u0026rsquo;s another to break it down clearly enough that a room full of people with wildly different starting points all get there.\nBig shoutout to Aidan Ethier and Walker Kennedy, who ran the parallel Blue Team track: securing SSH, RDP, and WinRM, reviewing service configs, and hardening against the exact misconfigurations we were exploiting on the Red side. Running both sides side-by-side made the whole series click for people in a way a single-track workshop wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have.\n","date":"5 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ccso-juice-shop-workshops/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Teaching CCSO: Breaking Juice Shop with the Red Team","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"5 November 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/training/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Training","type":"tags"},{"content":"Last weekend I got to lead the Penn State Competitive Cyber Security Organization\u0026rsquo;s inaugural Red vs. Blue Competition, and it was incredible to see it finally come to life after months of work.\nSince January # Since January, I\u0026rsquo;d been working with a great group of people to design, build, and launch a pirate-themed cyber range that would challenge attackers and defenders in realistic ways. The environment spanned 29 machines across multiple operating systems (web servers, databases, and Active Directory domain controllers) built to replicate enterprise-level complexity while staying approachable for students. On competition day, over 40 people were involved between the red team, blue teams, orange team, and facilitators, making it one of the largest and most complex events CCSO has ever run.\nMy role # I served as lead administrator of the event and developer of the infrastructure: designing and deploying the environment, writing custom tooling and malware scripts to keep the red team\u0026rsquo;s attacks realistic, and coordinating the flow of the competition so everything ran on schedule. All told, this was hundreds of hours of development, prep, and teamwork before a single team ever touched a keyboard.\nFor four and a half hours, 32 students defended systems as blue teamers against live red team attackers, submitting incident response and inject reports along the way and briefing a simulated C-suite on the evolving situation. The red team worked to compromise machines, kill services, and simulate real adversary tradecraft; the blue teams raced to detect intrusions, patch holes, and get critical systems back up under pressure. The pirate theme made the whole thing more fun without taking anything away from how real the pressure felt in the room.\nCrew # Red Team \u0026amp; environment development: Jonathan Skeete, Owen Dransfield, Asa Reynolds Blue Team leads: Aidan Ethier, Evan Glickman, Kekoa Merez Admin team: Isabella Masso, Aiden Johnson C-Suite: Nicklaus Giacobe, Matt Ruff I\u0026rsquo;m incredibly grateful to have been part of pulling this off, and even more excited about what it set up: this event became the template for the second Red v. Blue Competition we ran the following spring, and for wherever we take it from here.\n","date":"18 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ccso-red-v-blue-inaugural/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Building CCSO's First-Ever Red vs. Blue Competition, Pirates and All","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"18 October 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/infrastructure/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Infrastructure","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/automation/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Automation","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/home-lab/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Home Lab","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/kubernetes/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Kubernetes","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/monitoring/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Monitoring","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"11 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/proxmox/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Proxmox","type":"tags"},{"content":"This summer I expanded my Proxmox setup, built a multi-node Kubernetes cluster out of mini PCs, added real monitoring and alerting, and cleaned up my remote access workflow. Here\u0026rsquo;s what changed.\nProxmox server upgrades # Service monitoring with Uptime Kuma # Uptime Kuma now watches all my services and pings a custom Signal API bot the moment something goes offline, straight to my phone.\nFile upload server with Pingvin Share # For quick file transfers across my network and remotely, I stood up Pingvin Share. Drag-and-drop uploads, wget downloads, no dependence on someone else\u0026rsquo;s cloud. Uploads are password protected so only people I\u0026rsquo;ve given access to can push files.\nMinecraft servers: Java and Bedrock # Gaming is a real use case for this hardware. I run both Java and Bedrock Minecraft servers with plugins for gameplay and admin, tunneled through playit.gg so I skip the port forwarding headache entirely. This has turned out to be one of the more fun parts of the whole setup.\nSecurity monitoring with Wazuh SIEM and Signal alerts # Wazuh SIEM now runs across the network with agents on every key machine, and alerts feed into the same Signal bot for real-time incident awareness. Next step here is deploying Wazuh agents across the Kubernetes cluster with Ansible.\nVisualizing server performance with Grafana and InfluxDB # Grafana dashboards backed by InfluxDB track CPU, memory, disk, and network across all my servers and VMs in real time. I also wrote a custom scraper that pulls power data from my ILO and feeds it into Grafana too.\nGaming PC remote access with Parsec # Instead of hauling my gaming PC between home and Penn State, I use Parsec for low-latency remote desktop streaming. It\u0026rsquo;s worked well enough that I\u0026rsquo;d recommend it even for non-gaming use, like video editing.\nKubernetes cluster with mini PCs # I picked up 10 mini PCs and built a cluster:\n3 master nodes 7 worker nodes Kubespray and Ansible handled the Kubernetes deployment, and I wrote custom playbooks to install Helm and Rancher for management. The cluster runs 68 GiB of RAM and 54 cores total, and it\u0026rsquo;s become my playground for learning cloud-native orchestration. Ceph distributed storage is next on the list.\nReliable power backup with APC UPS # Pennsylvania gets frequent power blips, so the whole compute setup now sits behind an APC UPS with over 5 minutes of runtime. It also lets me remotely power cycle machines in proper groups, which has already been useful. Next up: SNMP traps to alert me on outages and when the battery drops below 10%.\nThis summer\u0026rsquo;s projects took a lot of late nights, but I came out with a much more capable lab: a stronger Proxmox environment, a real Kubernetes cluster, and monitoring and security automation that actually tells me when something\u0026rsquo;s wrong instead of finding out the hard way. More to come as I keep expanding it.\nWant configs, playbooks, or a walkthrough of any part of this? Reach out.\n© 2025 Maguire Younes\n","date":"11 August 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/server-update/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"What I've built over the summer: Proxmox, Kubernetes, Ansible and more","type":"posts"},{"content":"I was part of the Penn State Competitive Cyber Security Organization (CCSO) team that placed 3rd in the world at the Global Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition (CPTC). It\u0026rsquo;s the highest placement in the history of Penn State\u0026rsquo;s College of Information Sciences and Technology.\nThe competition # Out of 62 teams globally and 545 participants, we made it to the Global Finals and also won the Best Presentation Award for how we communicated our findings. CPTC is a real-world penetration testing simulation: teams assess a company\u0026rsquo;s security posture and report on it like they would for an actual client, and it pushes technical skill, creativity, and teamwork all at once.\nMy role # I led:\nWeb application penetration testing Database security Linux exploitation Between hunting vulnerabilities, building exploits, and writing remediation guidance, the whole competition was intense in a good way. It reinforced how much team collaboration and clear reporting matter in this field, on top of the technical work.\nTeamwork makes the dream work # None of this happens without my teammates:\nJonathan Skeete Liam Geyer Jenna Fox Asa Reynolds Robert Roderick Huge thanks to our advisor, Nicklaus Giacobe, whose guidance carried us through the whole competition.\nLooking ahead # This result set a new bar for Penn State at CPTC, and I\u0026rsquo;m excited to see how far the program goes from here. Thanks to everyone who backed us on this one.\nWE ARE!\n","date":"20 January 2025","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/cptc/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Penn State CCSO: 3rd in the world at CPTC!","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"18 December 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/canvas/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Canvas","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"18 December 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/chrome-extension/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Chrome Extension","type":"tags"},{"content":" The inspiration # I came across a Chrome extension called \u0026ldquo;Help Me Bevo\u0026rdquo; that plays the University of Texas mascot animation when you submit an assignment. As a Penn State student I couldn\u0026rsquo;t let that stand, so \u0026ldquo;Help Me Nittany Lion\u0026rdquo; was born.\nLearning the ropes # I had zero experience with Chrome extensions going in. I cloned the \u0026ldquo;Help Me Bevo\u0026rdquo; repo and started picking apart the code, which was plain JavaScript using event listeners to catch assignment submissions. After a few hours of trial, error, and Googling, I had a custom PSU animation firing on Canvas submissions.\nMaking it my own # Once the basics worked, I started adding my own touches:\nColor: switched the extension\u0026rsquo;s palette to Penn State\u0026rsquo;s colors so it actually felt like it belonged. Quotes: the extension\u0026rsquo;s settings page now shows a random PSU quote at the bottom, like \u0026ldquo;WE ARE!\u0026rdquo; Animation: there\u0026rsquo;s no official PSU animation to rip, so I pieced one together from images and quotes that feel like home. Publishing the extension # Getting it onto the Chrome Web Store took longer than I expected. Google\u0026rsquo;s review process wanted a real privacy policy and a full permissions breakdown, and it took a few rounds of revisions before it got approved. Then \u0026ldquo;Help Me Nittany Lion\u0026rdquo; went live.\nYou can grab it on the Chrome Web Store and install it in a click.\nOpen source # The whole thing is open source, so anyone can fork it and swap in their own school\u0026rsquo;s mascot. Code\u0026rsquo;s on GitHub.\n23younesm/Help-Me-Nittany-Lion JavaScript 0 0 Thanks to Aiden Johnson from UT for the original source and the idea.\nLonghorn-Developers/Help-Me-Bevo A browser extension to see the Bevo 3rd down animation when you submit an assignment. TypeScript 4 4 What started as a way to kill an afternoon turned into a real crash course in Chrome extension development. If you\u0026rsquo;re at Penn State, give it a shot.\nHappy submitting, and WE ARE!\n","date":"18 December 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/helpmenittany/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Help Me Nittany Lion: Bringing the Lion spirit to Canvas","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"18 December 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/penn-state/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Penn State","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"18 December 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/productivity/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Productivity","type":"tags"},{"content":" Download PDF Version Here! Education # The Pennsylvania State University\nUniversity Park, PA\nB.S., Cybersecurity Analytics and Operations, Class of 2027\nGPA: 3.98/4.00 Campus Experience # Competitive Cyber Security Organization, Competition Team Member\nSeptember \u0026lsquo;23 - Present\nConducted ethical hacking, penetration testing, network defense, and digital forensics. Selected from a competitive applicant pool for advanced technical skills. Member of MACCDC and CPTC teams; achieved historic results for PSU CCSO: MACCDC: 2nd Place Regional finish (first in CCSO history). CPTC: 3rd Place Global finish (first in CCSO history). University Park Undergraduate Association, Chair of Campus Operations\nSeptember \u0026lsquo;23 - Present\nOne of twenty responsible for representing the interests of all 42,000+ students on campus. Led a committee of 25+ representatives to oversee campus operations and physical plant matters. Advocated for student interests in managing a $35M budget with transparency and accountability. Presidential Leadership Academy, Presidential Scholar\nMarch \u0026lsquo;23 – Present\nOne of thirty selected for the Presidential Leadership Academy to build leadership skills. Participated in workshops, seminars, and projects to address challenges with integrity. Experience # Applied Research Laboratory, DevSecOps Engineering Intern\nOctober \u0026lsquo;24 – Present\nDesigned secure, automated solutions for high-performance computing environments. Applied software development and cybersecurity to enhance system reliability and security. Developed scalable pipelines and infrastructure to support advanced research projects. FirstEnergy, Network Transport WAN Intern\nMay \u0026lsquo;24 – August \u0026lsquo;24\nWorked on MPLS Networks, Microwave Transport Systems, and AMI smart meters. Integrated Nokia NSP API and led documentation conversions. Deployed a Nokia SAR 8 regional lab across six regions. Schreiber Center for Pediatric Development, IT Intern\nJune \u0026lsquo;23 – August \u0026lsquo;23\nImproved and rebuilt the main website using WordPress. Systems administrator of the main database using Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT. Videography and production of advertisements using Adobe software. Lancaster-Lebanon IU13, Network System Intern\nJune \u0026lsquo;22 – August \u0026lsquo;22\nProvisioned, installed, and maintained Juniper network systems. Assisted in the configuration and troubleshooting of LAN. Supported 22 public schools as an ISP technician. Awards # Boy Scouts of America\nEarned the highest rank of Eagle Scout, with four palms, June \u0026lsquo;20. Led a team to build two ticket booths for a local nonprofit’s largest fundraiser. Order of the Arrow, Boy Scouts of America\nReceived Vigil Honor, the highest honor of the OA, May \u0026lsquo;21. Received the Founders Award for selfless service, May \u0026lsquo;23. Lodge Chief, two-term leader of 300+ members, September \u0026lsquo;21 – \u0026lsquo;23. ","date":"22 August 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/resume/","section":"","summary":"","title":"Maguire Younes's Resume","type":"page"},{"content":"","date":"3 July 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/networking/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Networking","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"3 July 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/server/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Server","type":"tags"},{"content":"Here\u0026rsquo;s how I turned an old HP ProLiant DL380p into a Proxmox virtualization box for remote access, monitoring, and container hosting.\nBackground # I picked up an HP ProLiant DL380p off Facebook Marketplace. Specs:\n2x Intel Xeon E5-2640 0 @ 2.50GHz 64 GB DDR3 RAM HP Ethernet 1Gb 4-port 331FLR adapter 2.2 TB RAID 1 storage It came off Windows Server 2012 running Hyper-V VMs. I switched to Proxmox for the Linux base and the stronger virtualization features.\nInitial setup challenges # Firmware update # Booting the Proxmox installer off USB didn\u0026rsquo;t work at first because the server\u0026rsquo;s firmware was too old. HP\u0026rsquo;s own USB ISO for firmware updates was itself too outdated to run, so I ended up going through the Integrated Lights-Out (ILO) interface instead.\nLearning ILO # ILO took some real research to get comfortable with, but I got the firmware updated through it eventually. Surprisingly, HP still supports firmware updates for a server this old.\nInstalling Proxmox # With firmware sorted, I used ILO\u0026rsquo;s virtual DVD feature to mount the Proxmox installer, installed it, and formatted the disks the way I wanted.\nConfiguring Proxmox and VMs # Initial VM setup # First VM up was a basic Red Hat Linux box running a Cloudflare tunnel, which lets me reach my private network securely from Penn State without touching port forwarding.\nMonitoring and security # Uptime Kuma runs on the server now, giving me a dashboard for my website, the server itself, the tunnel, and SSH access.\nlouislam/uptime-kuma A fancy self-hosted monitoring tool JavaScript 88862 8091 I also added fail2ban on every VM with SSH exposed and locked down Proxmox permissions to cut off unauthorized access.\nfail2ban/fail2ban Daemon to ban hosts that cause multiple authentication errors Python 18118 1481 Container management # Portainer handles Docker container management, including spinning up things like my Signal API bot.\nFuture plans # With Proxmox where I want it, next up is using it to practice red and blue team skills, starting with an upcoming Red vs Blue exercise. I also want to learn Ansible for VM deployments and get Wazuh SIEM running for threat monitoring.\nTurning an old rack server into something this useful has been one of the more satisfying projects I\u0026rsquo;ve done. If you\u0026rsquo;re doing something similar, feel free to steal any part of this setup.\n","date":"3 July 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/server/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Setting up my Proxmox server on an HP ProLiant DL380p","type":"posts"},{"content":"","date":"3 July 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/virtualization/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Virtualization","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/upua/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"UPUA","type":"tags"},{"content":" Update! Maguire Younes was elected to the At-Large Position! Thanks for your support! Click the button to vote! # Candidate spotlight: Maguire Younes # I\u0026rsquo;m from Lancaster, PA, and most weekends you\u0026rsquo;ll find me camping, hiking, fishing, or messing around with computers. My favorite thing about Penn State is hands down the energy at hockey games. I\u0026rsquo;m running for At-Large Representative because I want to put that same energy into making the Penn State experience better for everyone here.\nVoting closes March 27th. Your vote decides who represents you, so use it.\nUnderstanding UPUA at PSU # The University Park Undergraduate Association (UPUA) is the student government body for undergrads at Penn State. It advocates for student interests, addresses concerns, and pushes initiatives that improve day-to-day student life.\nHow UPUA helps students # Advocates for student needs and concerns to university administration. Runs programs and initiatives to improve campus facilities, safety, and accessibility. Builds community and inclusivity through engagement initiatives. At-Large Representative role # An At-Large Representative speaks for the entire student body rather than one college or constituency. That means:\nAdvocating for student concerns and initiatives. Working with other representatives on campus-wide issues. Talking to students directly to gather feedback and suggestions. Campaign platforms # My campaign focuses on three areas.\nCampus infrastructure improvement # Installing tables with chargers in the HUB. Adding bike rack covers. Improving CATA bus service. Better snowstorm procedures. Expanding safety initiatives like the Safety Walk App and Green Dot programs. Sustainability and environmental initiatives # Promoting recycling programs, including recycling for red solo cups. Improving green spaces like the HUB Garden. Pushing eco-friendly practices campus-wide. Community engagement and well-being initiatives # Getting more food resources to students. Installing Big Ten pendants in the HUB. Making sure menstrual products are in every bathroom. Advocating for THON days off. Click the button to vote! # Follow the campaign # @younes4upua #younes4upua\n","date":"26 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/upua-elections-2024/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Vote For Maguire Younes!","type":"posts"},{"content":"Last weekend, the Penn State Competitive Cyber Security Organization\u0026rsquo;s (CCSO) defensive team took 2nd place out of 10 teams at the Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (MACCDC). It\u0026rsquo;s the best finish Penn State has ever had at this event, and it came with a spot in the wildcard round for a shot at nationals.\nOur achievement # We placed 2nd out of 10 teams at MACCDC, a first for Penn State, and advanced to the wildcard competition where we fought for a spot in the national championships.\nOur team # Jacob Dorchinsky (Captain) Liam Geyer Brendan McShane Aiden Johnson Cy Fisher Jenna Fox Evan Glickman Maguire Younes Nick Giacobe (Advisor) My role # I worked on firewalls and general network security: finding Command and Control (C2) servers, fixing improper sudo permissions, and cleaning up a long list of other security issues.\nUnderstanding MACCDC # MACCDC challenges teams to defend a simulated corporate network against a professional red team. The competition runs through qualifiers, a regional round, and then the wildcard round leading into national championships.\nWe got past qualifiers, then placed 2nd out of 10 at regionals, which pushed us into the wildcard round, where our run ended.\nWhere we go from here # Getting knocked out at the wildcard round stings a little, but 2nd place at regionals is still the best MACCDC result Penn State has had. We picked up a lot of hands-on experience defending against real attacks, and we\u0026rsquo;re already looking at what to fix before next season.\n","date":"24 March 2024","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/posts/ccdc/","section":"Posts","summary":"","title":"Our Journey at MACCDC","type":"posts"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"}]