https://ta1al.com/blog/Thoughts on security, development, and technology.en-USCopyright 2026 Talal Ahmedhttps://ta1al.com/blog/management-wants-a-word-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/management-wants-a-word-tryhackme-writeup/Sun, 09 Aug 2026 22:30:00 +0500A walkthrough of Management Wants a Word, a TryHackMe Windows forensics room involving a KAPE dump, cracked local credentials, DPAPI master keys, Chrome secrets, and a VeraCrypt container hiding the flag.https://ta1al.com/blog/the-guestbook-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/the-guestbook-tryhackme-writeup/Sat, 08 Aug 2026 23:21:00 +0500A walkthrough of The Guestbook, a TryHackMe AI security challenge where VERA turns guestbook entries into manager-authorized shell commands.https://ta1al.com/blog/after-hours-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/after-hours-tryhackme-writeup/Fri, 07 Aug 2026 21:52:41 +0500A walkthrough of After Hours, a TryHackMe forensics challenge involving a Windows WMI repository, a custom class, raw DEFLATE, and a .NET payload.https://ta1al.com/blog/infinity-pool-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/infinity-pool-tryhackme-writeup/Fri, 07 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0500A walkthrough of Infinity Pool, a TryHackMe Boot2Root room involving command injection, exposed internal configuration, FreePBX, and a root-owned automation API.https://ta1al.com/blog/the-hollow-shell-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/the-hollow-shell-tryhackme-writeup/Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0500A beginner-friendly walkthrough of The Hollow Shell, a TryHackMe web challenge that combines a login leak, archive upload abuse, LFI, and server-side hook execution.https://ta1al.com/blog/cryptocabana-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/cryptocabana-tryhackme-writeup/Wed, 05 Aug 2026 10:14:21 +0500A beginner-friendly walkthrough of CryptoCabana, a TryHackMe Azure challenge involving a leaked SAS token, exposed service-principal credentials, and Key Vault secret versions.https://ta1al.com/blog/towel-on-the-sunbed-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/towel-on-the-sunbed-tryhackme-writeup/Tue, 04 Aug 2026 15:27:43 +0500A beginner-friendly walkthrough of Towel on the Sunbed, a TryHackMe web challenge involving a race condition in a daily reward mechanism.https://ta1al.com/blog/do-not-disturb-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/do-not-disturb-tryhackme-writeup/Tue, 04 Aug 2026 09:15:00 +0500A walkthrough of Do Not Disturb, a TryHackMe Boot2Root room involving NoSQL injection, EJS template injection, an exposed Node.js inspector, and disk-group privilege escalation.https://ta1al.com/blog/overheard-at-breakfast-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/overheard-at-breakfast-tryhackme-writeup/Sat, 01 Aug 2026 21:30:00 +0500A quick OSINT walkthrough of Overheard at Breakfast, a TryHackMe Hacker Holidays room about tracing an email address to a hidden Gravatar profile.https://ta1al.com/blog/beach-bar-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/beach-bar-tryhackme-writeup/Fri, 31 Jul 2026 22:21:41 +0500A beginner-friendly walkthrough of Beach Bar, a TryHackMe Linux challenge involving exposed credentials, unsafe YAML deserialization, and a password leaked through a root process.https://ta1al.com/blog/packed-light-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/packed-light-tryhackme-writeup/Thu, 30 Jul 2026 22:48:57 +0500A beginner-friendly walkthrough of Packed Light, a TryHackMe network forensics challenge about recovering XOR-encrypted keystrokes from HTTP cookies.https://ta1al.com/blog/complimentary-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/complimentary-tryhackme-writeup/Thu, 30 Jul 2026 11:30:00 +0500A beginner-friendly walkthrough of Complimentary, an AWS cloud security challenge involving Cognito guest credentials and an over-permissive DynamoDB role.https://ta1al.com/blog/room-404-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/room-404-tryhackme-writeup/Tue, 28 Jul 2026 23:20:00 +0500A beginner-friendly walkthrough of Room 404, a TryHackMe web challenge about directory enumeration and an exposed Git repository.https://ta1al.com/blog/the-concierge-knows-too-much-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/the-concierge-knows-too-much-tryhackme-writeup/Mon, 27 Jul 2026 21:30:00 +0500A beginner-friendly walkthrough of The Concierge Knows Too Much, an AI security challenge about identity spoofing and prompt disclosure.https://ta1al.com/blog/the-brochure-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/the-brochure-tryhackme-writeup/Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0500A beginner-friendly OSINT walkthrough of The Brochure, the warmup room for TryHackMe’s Hacker Holiday series.https://ta1al.com/blog/how-i-passed-comptia-security-plus/https://ta1al.com/blog/how-i-passed-comptia-security-plus/Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0500How I prepared for and passed the CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 exam, including the resources I used, difficult topics, and advice for future candidates.https://ta1al.com/projects/home-soc-lab/https://ta1al.com/projects/home-soc-lab/Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0500A layered home SOC environment combining Wazuh, Sysmon, pfSense, and n8n for endpoint monitoring, network visibility, and actionable alert delivery.https://ta1al.com/blog/cybersecurity-incidents-lessons/https://ta1al.com/blog/cybersecurity-incidents-lessons/Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0500A report-based review of recurring failure patterns across telecom, SaaS, enterprise software, source-code, and package-supply-chain incidents.https://ta1al.com/projects/wannacry-malware-analysis/https://ta1al.com/projects/wannacry-malware-analysis/Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0500Static and dynamic analysis of a WannaCry sample in an isolated Windows environment, with correlated process, file, registry, and network evidence.https://ta1al.com/blog/digital-footprint-tryhackme-writeup/https://ta1al.com/blog/digital-footprint-tryhackme-writeup/Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0500A beginner-friendly TryHackMe Digital Footprint OSINT walkthrough covering EXIF metadata, WARC archives, reverse-image search, and document metadata.