Hackers Share Their Stories on The Hacker Factory Podcast
I have had the honor of podcasting for ITSPMagazine since February 2020. My first podcast was The Uncommon Journey with two amazing friends Chloé Messdaghi and Alissa Miller, which was a great learning experience. In April, I started my own podcast called The Hacker Factory. The title The Hacker Factory came from a term I had coined myself as The Hacker Maker. After all, a Hacker Maker would work in a Hacker Factory. The Hacker Maker origin was based on what I would tell my wife before leaving to go to the Richland Campus of Dallas College to teach ethical hacking that I had to go and make the hackers. There used to be a Duncan Donut, and the baker would tell his wife before heading out the door to make donuts; he would say, “I have to make the donuts”. I got the domain name TheHackerMaker.com, so I had a place to host information and links to my class at Dallas College, which eventually became my personal website and hosted the class information.
A lot of what I do outside of my day job is to teach and mentor aspiring pentesters. Teaching and mentoring are passions of mine. The Hacker Factory Podcast is an extension of this passion, just like the book I co-authored titled “The Pentester Blueprint: Starting a Career as an Ethical Hacker” and the organization I founded called The Pwn School Project. In each episode, I have discussions with hackers, pentesters on all levels, including hobbyists, to experience veteran offensive cybersecurity professionals' stories, how they got started, and their advice for those wanting to start a career as a pentester. The goal of this podcast series is to inform and inspire people wanting to become pentesters. The different guest’s stories resonate more with people than others, and the hope is that one or some of these stories will be an encouragement for aspiring pentesters to start their journey into the world of hacking. Even if you are not interested in becoming a pentester, these stories are sure to entertain and inform listeners.
