Email: constantin.nica@gmail.com
Security Engineer and Penetration Tester with an interest in full-spectrum offensive security (red teaming, social engineering, exploit development, basic malware analysis).
The software developer and architecture background has enabled me to have a different view in what cyber penetraiton testing is, use my own approach (build custom exploits, understand the value of a business exploit, the impact of a good social engineering campaign or the proficiency of combined operations).
Speaker at the following events:
https://www.iafie.org (2019, Bucharest, Romania) – speaker, Hybrid warfare, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity
http://atlantec.ie (2017, Galway, Ireland) – Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity https://www.cvbersecuritvdav.rinf.tech (2020) – speaker, organiser https://etee-summer.school/ ( 2022) – Speaker, DDoS attacks in MFA apps
https://magnanews.ro/2022/05/universitatea-ovidius-constanta-conferinta-securitate-si-fake-news/ (2022) – Speaker
Publications:
http://bibliotecadigitala.unap.ro/handle/123456789/1433 – USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN AUGMENTED ENVIRONMENTS FOR COMPLEX TRAINING SCENARIOS IN THE DEFENCE INDUSTRY (unap.ro) https://content.sciendo.com/view/iournals/kbo/26/1/article-p94.xml – Using Weaponized Machine Learning in Cyber Offensive Operations
https://cv19.ro/echipa/ – Volunteer member in cv19 group, Romania
EDUCATION
2021 Training Programe Training Course – Cybersecurity Leadearship/Management – Professional Development Academy, US csfi.us
2012-2015 BSc University of South Wales Managementul Afacerii si Tehnologia Informatiilor Upper Second Class, Honors Cardiff, UK
EXPERIENCE
01/2021 – present
Information Security Officer • ISEC/SOC • BRD GSG
Activities:
– Vulnerability analysis;
– Support for Red Team operations.
– SOC support for XDR configuration, event analysis, DLP, SIEM event analysis;
– Support for configuration and support for XDR, IDS/IPS, SIEM;
– DevSecOps team support for tooling, vulnerability management and analysis;
– Security Champions programme manager/designer/maintainer;
– Pen testing and security auditing management;
– Cloud infrastructure support for OpenShift containers with Docker;
– IAM customization – microservice integration and deployment with Keycloak
10/2018 – 01/2021
Security Engineer • Security Contractor • European Comission
Activities:
– vulnerability management via internal systems: vulnerability analysis, information gathering, exploit analysis/development, system tests, reporting;
– code hardening operations (SONAR, Fortify, CheckMarx, HCL AppScan) in existing stacks ( Spring, Spring Boot, Angular, Node);
– development of custom tools using python and flask;
– SAST (OWASP ZAP/HUD, BurpSuite Pro, Nessus, NMAP);
– DAST (BurpSuite Pro, Parrot/Kali, B33f, john, Metasploit, exploitdb, Cain & Abel, Hydra, edb, etc.);
– DEVSECOPS Team support – Github Actions/Workflows custom tooling development using python and pipeline integration/migration to Github Actions and self-hosted services;
– OP-SEC Profilling & Risk Assessment (S.T.R.I.D.E, ITRSM2, P.A.S.T.A);
– IOC analysis using Splunk/OSSEC (minimal involvement or when required);
– Cloud Infrastructure security and configuration testing (AWS, Docker, Kubernetes)
Development Stack: Spring Boot, Spring Security, CXF, PostGreSQL, BouncyCastle, JAX-RS, JAX-WS;
02/2018 ( contract/mission based )
Security Engineer / Senior Developer • Security/Software
Development 5G Networks • Ericsson Ltd
Activities:
– vulnerability management: analysis and reporting, exploit research, exploit development based on vulnerability data, creating reports and notifications;
– software development and customization of IAM (Keycloak) solution and LDAP (Spring Boot, Spring, OpenLDAP, J2EE);
– Web Containers used/analysed: NGINX, Apache Tomcat, httpd, JBoss, Weblogic;
– Configuration of various applications into the cloud infrastructure and service mesh infrastructure of the company (private and public cloud): Istio, Envoy, Citadel; AWS, JBoss private cloud, Azure;
– SAST operations: scanning, fixing issues in the code base. Tools used here: NMAP, Trivy, OWASP ZAP/HUD, BurpSuite Pro, ARM XRay, Tenable.sc, Anchore, Nessus;
– DAST: dynamic blackbox/gray box testing of existing IAM and LDAP infrastructure using various tools (BurpSuite Pro, Parrot/Kali, B33f, john, Metasploit, exploitdb, Cain & Abel, Hydra, edb, ghidra, etc.)
– cloud infrastructure testing (AWS, JBOSS Cloud);
Development Stack: Keycloak, OpenLDAP, Forgerock IAM, Python, J2EE, Spring, SpringBoot, Robot Framework, Zuul, Hystrix, Eureka, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS C2;
11/2015 – 02/2018
Security Engineer / Developer • Security Contractor • Various Companies (Deutsche Bank, Teamnet International, SIVECO Romania SA, AmazingSoft SRL, Medialine AG)
Activities:
– pen testing ( BurpSuite Pro, Parrot/Kali, B33f, john, Metasploit, exploitdb, Cain & Abel, Hydra, edb, ghidra, etc.);
– risk analysis (PASTA, STRIDE);
– software development (JAVA – SpringBoot, Spring Core, J2EE);
Development Stack: Python, J2EE, Spring, SpringBoot, Android, JBOSS, Tomcat, Weblogic;
08/2006 – 10/2015
Solution Architect /Developer • Employee • SIVECO Romania SA Activities:
– Gathering requirements from users, creating business and design documentation using SSADM based procedures, ISO 20000 based document structures, creating user training documentation, deployment into production for JAVA environments; creating test documentation, designing software system components based on customer requirements, creating business cases, use cases and activity diagrams for the business analysis section, supporting the developer team (writing code, setting up development environments, roll-out into production), managing company resources for each project.
– Support and consultancy for the Presales teams in the commercial phases of the project by participating in negotiations, participating in the writing of the bidding documentation, organizing bidding teams and supervising bidding teams, building customer demos.
– Project Management responsibilities: Develop project documentation;
– Requirements review;
– Supervise system component teams/bidding operations;
– Manage team tasks and tickets;
– Project Planning;
– Team Management;
– Task Management;
– Risk analysis/management;
– Involvement in the elicitation process/supporting system solutions;
– Risk Analysis;
Certifications and training
EC Council training programes: ECSA, CTIA, CEH v11, ECIH OSCP Training – Offensive Security
Mastering Container Security (Kubernetes, Docker, AWS) Certificate Using Doona Certificate Using CaseFile Certificate Social Engineering Training Certificate BurpSuite Pro Training Certificate . Penetration Testing with Kali Linux
Lockheed Martin’s Kill Chain – Security Training Certificate
Advanced Penetration Testing Certificate
Foreign Exchanger and FX Derivatives Training Certificate
Investment BankingBasics of Financial Markerts Training Certificate
Cash Equities and Derivatives Training Certificate
IELTS Academic English Certification
ECDL Certified for Modules 1, 2, 3, 4, 7
Certified Java Programmer, Java 1.6
ORACLE Certification PL/SQL Developer
ORACLE SQL Developer Certificate