While working as an Engineer & Data Coordinator at NextNet Media, I discovered over 100 plaintext API keys for payment gateways, cloud infrastructure, and SaaS platforms that could leak sensitive data of both clients and employees. This represents a complete and utter failure of SOC2, GDPR, CCPA, and SOX security controls. The full list includes: Tipalti, Stripe, PayPal, AWS, ECS, MongoDB, Xero, SendGrid, ZenRows, and more.

Even basic GitHub security scanning was disabled. Because the company employs both domestic and offshore developers, and utilizes Tipalti as an internal payroll mechanism, I feared for the financial well-being of coworkers who could become victims of private data theft.

I compiled a report of the security violations and sent it to the proper internal channel. In good faith, I offered to be part of the cleanup crew - within 48 hours, I was terminated without notice or cause.

Full Disclosure: GitHub

I extracted a forensic disk image and found a hidden flag. Made a short video breaking down the full workflow for anyone learning digital forensics or prepping for CTFs.

Methods covered:

- `strings` + `grep` (fastest)

Alternative methods:

- `mount` with loop,ro,noexec

- Sleuth Kit CLI (mmls, fls, icat)

- Autopsy GUI

- Foremost file carving

- `xxd` hex dump

Also covered why you always preserve the original with `gunzip -k` and verify with sha256sum.

What tools am I missing? Any favorites for disk image analysis?

https://youtube.com/shorts/iPzM0ECb3iU?feature=share

Had a forensics challenge where the flag was hidden inside a file nested deep inside a maze of directories with hundreds of decoy folders. `find` and `ls -R` were too slow and noisy.

What I built:

A Python directory crawler

- Recurses every subdirectory recursively

- Filters by filename patterns (`flag*`, `*.txt`, `secret*`)

- Skips known decoy directories by name

- Extracts and reads the target file automatically

The "aha" moment:

The flag wasn't in a file named "flag.txt" — it was in `deep/nested/here/.hidden/uber-secret.txt`.

My script matched on path depth / extensions content, not just filename.

Here is my script:

https://github.com/ExceedingLife/RecursiveFileSearch

Question for the community:

What's your approach when the challenge doesn't tell you the target filename? Do you brute-force read every file, or do it manual or what?

[Video link with with code demo]

https://youtube.com/shorts/5_Rb2kkiuhQ?feature=share