Hello. My name is Luke Chop.

Fun fact: I wanted to get the domain chop.com but the minimum offer for it was $800k. Imagine my email being luke@chop.com. That would be awesome.

I'm from Jacksonville, Florida, and I've always been interested in computers. It all started when I ran a Minecraft server off my family iMac in elementary school. I was then social engineered into downloading a custom plugin made by a "friend." They gave themselves admin privileges and destroyed my world. Luckily, I had a backup, so it was fine.

I'm extremely passionate about the Information Security field and am excited to contribute to it upon graduating in May with my B.S. in Cybersecurity.

I currently hold my Security+ and CySA+ certifications by CompTIA. Currently, I am studying for the HTB Certified Defensive Security Analyst (HTB CDSA) by HackTheBox. The CDSA is a highly hands-on certification that assesses the candidates' security analysis, SOC operations, and incident handling skills at an intermediate level. I really like this certification as it will test my knowledge in a practical way. I first need to complete the SOC Analyst path, which I've learned a ton from so far. My favorite modules are definitely the ones involving Splunk. I feel like a detective going through, putting the pieces together on why regular user Bob is having repeated Kerberos authentication failures. I enjoy the process of investigating and resolving such issues.

While not spending time on HackTheBox, I enjoy listening to DarkNetDiaries. My favorite categories are red teaming and APTs. I find these topics particularly interesting because they showcase the ingenuity and persistence of attackers and the importance of robust defenses. I also listen to the Cyber Security Headlines podcast to stay up to date.

If you're actually interested in what I do for fun I like hanging out with my friends and going to the gym. I peaked in college my sophomore year when I maxed out at 365lbs on bench.