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SecurityStories - 52 Weeks, 52 Stories

Story - 6: Featuring Robbe Van Roey

Robbe Van Roey

Through the SecurityStories series, Today, we are excited to bring forward the story of Robbe Van Roey, a highly skilled hacker and security professional from Belgium. He is widely known as PinkDraconian. He creates unique content, and you must have seen him extensively in Intigriti’s content series.

Let’s jump straight into learning more about him and his experience.

Question: Could you briefly introduce yourself?

Robbe Van Roey: Hi! I’m PinkDraconian. I’m an ethical hacker. I love to hack, break into things and have that ecstatic feeling come over me when I get in somewhere!

I’m also the Hacker Manager at Intigriti. Our bug bounty platform is one of the best bug bounty platforms there is. I always aim to ensure that the hackers have a great time on our bug bounty platform.

I’m also a hacker content creator. I create all kinds of content you see on Intigriti Twitter and the videos you see on YouTube. I also have my own channel: PinkDraconian.

Question: How did you get started in Cyber Security?

Robbe Van Roey: 5 years ago, I knew nothing about information security. I was doing my bachelors in AI & Robotics. But then I had one class: Cybersecurity Essentials. I LOVED THIS CLASS.

Once I had completed the class, I immediately went to Hack The Box because I wanted to become a hacker. This was hard. I still remember my first box. It took me 2 weeks of constantly trying and learning to finish the box. But that feeling of getting root was AMAZING!

So I kept on playing Hack The Box. My second box took a week, my third took a couple of days, my third one took a day, and before I knew it, I got to the top 100 on Hack The Box and spent every Saturday night pwning the newest box.

These were some great times. I also started playing a lot of CTFs. I won the Cybersecurity Challenge in Belgium, competed in the European Cybersecurity Challenge twice and even competed in the International Cybersecurity Challenge.

I started hunting real-world targets. I did my first penetration test, and I still remember the doubt about the CISO. He really thought I wasn’t going to be able to do anything. But yet, 3 hours later, I was their Active Directory system’s domain admin, which felt so good.

Question: What were the initial challenges and blockers you faced?

Robbe Van Roey: Starting out, it’s all fun and games, and you’re just doing what you love constantly. Just pwning boxes. It’s so much fun.

But after a couple of years, money can feel stale when money gets involved. So I had significant challenges with keeping motivated at some points.

But the vital thing to note is that you should always be humble. You’re never an expert at anything and you always have tons to learn. Refrain from assuming you know something really well because you don’t. The only time when you can not be humble is when talking to recruiters 😅

Question: What is the learning methodology you followed or still follow?

Robbe Van Roey: Curiosity is my main driving factor: How does this work. Curiosity can give you the motivation you need to keep progressing.

Besides that, I take a lot of notes. I have documentation on every command I ever run. I can copy and paste straight out of my notes, and every single flag and parameter is explained there. This is very important since it’s impossible to remember how to use every tool. Having great docs allows you to quickly pick something up again after not using it for years.

Question: What all certifications do you hold, and what certificates would you recommend to the readers?

Robbe Van Roey: I’m not a massive fan of certifications. I think their main goal is to please recruiters, but there are cheaper ways of doing this.

Start a YouTube channel, create a blog, get a CVE, share your research, go on a podcast, get to the top on HTB, and join a top CTF team. There are many free ways of gaining experience and showing off your skills!

Question: What is your favourite thing to hack on?

Robbe Van Roey: I love a lot of things:

Question: What does your tool arsenal look like - Could you share some?

Robbe Van Roey: I use the same tools everyone does. Tools are great to help you, but you must know how to fully utilise those tools. Most of the tools I use come installed on Kali. Don’t just run tools with the default settings. It will suck when you get your 100th dupe :)

My most used tool is BurpSuite. Super cool tool!

Question: How do you cope with Burn Outs?

Robbe Van Roey: Luckily, I haven’t experienced a real burnout in these 5 years. Let’s hope that stays the same.

Question: What would you advise the newcomers in Cyber Security?

Robbe Van Roey: Don’t look for mentors or for guidance. Just follow your interest. See what you like and start digging. You will carve your own path and become an expert in something instead of just being someone doing the same as everyone else.

Ethical hacking is a challenging field. It’s really, really hard. But with the right motivation, you can make it!

Question: How do you keep up with the latest trends in Cyber Security - Could you share your go-to resources?

Robbe Van Roey: One stop: Intigriti’s Bug Bytes! https://newsletter.intigriti.com/

Question: What’s your life outside hacking?

Robbe Van Roey: I have a beautiful girlfriend, and all the time I have outside of hacking, I like to spend with her. I love going on hikes with her and geocaching!

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