Network Security Engineer

Built-in commands only. Nothing to install, no account, nothing to sign up for.

1. 1

   Watch a name turn into an address

   Every connection starts by looking up a name. Run this against a site you use daily, then against a site in another country. Notice you get different addresses — sometimes several.

   Windows

   nslookup bbc.co.uk

   macOS

   dig bbc.co.uk +short

   Linux

   dig bbc.co.uk +short

2. 2

   Trace the path out

   This lists every router your traffic passes through to reach that address. Read the hostnames down the left — you can usually see it leave your house, reach your provider, and cross into a backbone network.

   Windows

   tracert bbc.co.uk

   macOS

   traceroute bbc.co.uk

   Linux

   traceroute bbc.co.uk

3. 3

   Find where the time goes

   Look at the millisecond figures. Somewhere there is a jump — 8ms to 90ms between two hops. That jump is usually the moment your traffic goes long-distance. Now trace somewhere far away and compare where the jump happens.

4. 4

   Break it on purpose, then put it back

   Add a line to your hosts file pointing a site you use at 127.0.0.1, and try to load it. Watch how the failure looks from the browser — the error will not tell you what you just did. Then delete the line. This is the single most useful thing on this list: you have now seen a name-resolution fault from the user's side, which is what half of all "the internet is down" tickets actually are.

   Windows

   notepad C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts   (run as Administrator)

   macOS

   sudo nano /etc/hosts

   Linux

   sudo nano /etc/hosts

5. 5

   Optional — watch the actual conversation

   If you want to go further, install Wireshark, capture for ten seconds while loading one page, and filter for "http" or "dns". You will see the individual messages between your machine and the server. This is the one step that needs an install, which is why it is last.

Uses the log viewer already built into your operating system. Nothing to install.

1. 1

   Open the record

   Your machine has been writing down what it does, continuously, for as long as you have owned it. Most people never look.

   Windows

   eventvwr.msc  →  Windows Logs  →  System

   macOS

   Console.app  →  select your Mac under Devices

   Linux

   journalctl -b --no-pager | less

2. 2

   Find yourself in it

   Locate the moment you logged in this morning. Note the exact timestamp and the event id. You have just done the core move of every investigation: anchoring to one known event so everything else can be measured against it.

   Windows

   Security log → filter Event ID 4624 (successful logon)

   Linux

   journalctl -b | grep -i "session opened"

3. 3

   Establish what normal looks like

   Scroll a full day. Find three things that happen every single day at roughly the same time — an update check, a backup, a scheduled task. Write them down. This is baselining, and it is the skill that separates people who spot a real intrusion from people who chase noise for a year.

4. 4

   Find the one that only happened once

   Now look for something that appears exactly once in the last week. A driver failure, an unexpected shutdown, a service that crashed. Read the surrounding twenty entries either side. Can you tell a story about what happened, and what happened next as a consequence?

5. 5

   Write the timeline

   Pick five events, put them in order with timestamps, and write three sentences explaining what occurred. Show it to someone non-technical. If they understand it, you have just done the part of security work that most people are worst at — the writing, which is what actually gets acted on.

Nmap is free and open source. One install, no account, available for every platform.

1. 1

   Establish what your own network is

   Find your own address and the range your network occupies. You need to know precisely what you own before you touch anything, and getting this wrong is how people accidentally scan their neighbour or their ISP.

   Windows

   ipconfig

   macOS

   ifconfig | grep "inet "

   Linux

   ip addr

2. 2

   Find out what is actually on it

   A ping sweep of your own range. Count the results. Almost everyone finds more than they expected — a thermostat, a TV, a printer they thought was off, a doorbell, a device they cannot identify at all. That last category is the interesting one.

   Any

   nmap -sn 192.168.1.0/24        # adjust to YOUR range from step 1

3. 3

   Identify the one you cannot name

   Pick the device you could not identify. Ask what it is — services, guessed operating system, vendor from its hardware address. Then go and physically find it in your home. This is device profiling, and it is precisely what a network access control system does automatically, all day, at enterprise scale.

   Any

   nmap -A 192.168.1.42          # the unknown device on YOUR network

4. 4

   Practise against the one legal target

   The Nmap Project runs scanme.nmap.org for exactly this purpose. Scan it once or twice — not repeatedly — and compare what a deliberately exposed host looks like against your own devices. Read the open ports and ask what each one is for.

   Any

   nmap -A scanme.nmap.org

5. 5

   Ask the question that actually matters

   You now have a list of open ports. A scanner will tell you what is open; it will never tell you whether it matters. For each finding ask: is it reachable from outside my house, what would someone get if they took it, and is there a reason it is on at all? That reasoning — exposure and impact, not severity scores — is the whole difference between running a tool and doing the job.

6. 6

   Write it up as if for someone else

   Three findings, ranked by what you would fix first, with a sentence each on why. Include one you decided NOT to worry about, and say why. Being able to justify what you deliberately ignored is what separates a useful report from a wall of noise nobody acts on.

Paper and a pen. Deliberately no tools — the constraint is the point, because architecture is thinking, not diagramming software.

1. 1

   Draw what you actually have

   Your home network, on one sheet. Router, every device, how each connects. If you did the exposure trial you already have the inventory; if not, list them from memory and then check — the gap between what you remembered and what is really there is itself the first finding, and it is the same gap every organisation has.

2. 2

   Draw the lines nothing crosses

   Now mark what can reach what. On a normal home network the honest answer is everything reaches everything — your work laptop, your smart bulb, a guest's phone, the doorbell camera all sit in one flat space. Draw that reality, not the reality you would prefer.

3. 3

   Name the thing that actually matters

   Of everything on that page, what would genuinely hurt to lose or have taken? Usually one or two things: the machine with your work on it, the drive with the family photos. Circle them. Everything else on the diagram exists, in security terms, mainly as a route toward those.

4. 4

   Pick the worst device and follow it

   Choose the least trustworthy thing on the network — the cheapest smart device, the one that has not had a firmware update in three years. Trace, on the diagram, exactly what it can reach if someone takes it. That path is your blast radius, and drawing it is more persuasive than any risk score you could write down.

5. 5

   Redesign it, on a second sheet

   Draw the version where that cannot happen. A separate network for untrusted devices. The important machine somewhere the doorbell cannot reach. Guest access that is genuinely separate. You do not have to build it — you have to be able to justify it.

6. 6

   Now write down what your design costs

   This is the step that separates architecture from wishful thinking. What breaks? Casting to the TV probably stops working. Someone has to maintain two networks. A guest cannot print. Write the honest list, then decide which trade-offs you would actually accept and which you would not. If you cannot articulate the cost of your own design, you will lose every real architecture argument you ever have.