Personal Road Map

Who l am?

Name: Aleksandar Dobrev

Age: 22
Country: Bulgaria
University: Fontys University of Applied Sciences
Profile: Infrastructure
Specialization: Cyber Security
Introduction
My name is Alexander Dobrev, and I am from Bulgaria. I previously completed "PROFILED SCHOOLS
OF NATURAL MATHEMATICS ACAD. NIKOLA OBRESHKOV" with English language, biology and
information technologies. My interest is focused on innovation and integration of information technologies.
From a young age, I have been very interested in different aspects of technology. To be honest, my first
computer was when I was only four years old, and from then on, I have been playing different computer
games and using software for different things. Other interests may be related to sports, such as years ago
when I trained for football and tennis on the court. These two sports are my favorites, and I really enjoy
watching or playing them. I also have idols in these sports, as in tennis, my favorite tennis player is the
Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, and in football, my favorites are my home team, Ludogorets, and in England,
the team of Manchester United.

Before entering the university, I had studied the hardware components of a computer and worked with the
Windows operating system. My experience with the servers, routers, and IP addresses is from my father,
who did and announced similar things. For example, legal connections to a home router via wi-fi and
network cable, adjusting settings for IP addresses and making servers for various games such as
Counter-Strike. I truly believe that my interest in computers and technology began at a young age.

Talking about my personality, l could say that l am really responsible and social person. l have done the
test that was suggested multiple times throughout my semesters. My personality that l receive in this
website is Consul and l really agree with that with some exceptions. l always try to help other people
when they need some kind of support and l think l am really easy going person, who can talk open with
different people. Most of the time, l am this funny guy, who makes everyone laugh, but at the same time l
am also very strict person. l always strive for good results, diving deep in different topics and really
enjoying to just learn new things. l am a person, who notice very small details and that really helps me a
lot with people and work. l just enjoy motivating the people around even they feel sometimes bad and
they to encourage them to keep going. In the end of the day, l am hardworking person, who enjoys
different kind of challenges.
Table of content
Introduction...........................................................................................................................2
My experience......................................................................................................................4
Personal wishes and goals...................................................................................................6
My experience
During my second and third semesters, I managed to acquire knowledge in the field of infrastructure. I
managed to make new acquaintances. During these past semesters, I managed to gain a lot of useful
experience in teamwork, as well as server work, security, Python programming, and the AWS cloud. I
dare say that I did so at a pretty good level as I went through all the challenges.

I have extensive knowledge of Linux, security, networking, and the AWS cloud. My interest in Linux and
networking started in the first semester, when I worked with different commands in Linux and also had to
set up networking. I can safely say that my teacher then also had a very key role, which made me delve
into this area. I continued to gain experience during the second semester, during which I learned many
interesting things. I went through the study on security management, secure network protocols (SSH,
SCP, SSL, and TLS), IDS/IPS, monitoring tools, and also, for the first time, pen testing as we had to
investigate for vulnerabilities. The following semester, we also had a course related to security and
network orchestration and monitoring. where I primarily worked in the AWS cloud and studied VPC
connections, Route 53, and server support. I was even more intrigued because we also supported a
software team that was happy with us. During these past semesters, I gained knowledge that was quite
important to me. I completely devoted myself to this field. I put in a lot of effort. I even made and studied
extra materials because it was just a pleasure for me.

My fourth semester was all about cyber security, and I managed to learn a lot about this field. This
semester, I learned about ethical hacking, risk consulting, security engineering, and security analysts. All
these subjects were very interesting, and in some of them I already had some experience. I was also able
to work on 3 projects, which were very useful for me, and I was able to complete them in a good way. I
was pleased with this semester, and it piqued my interest in cyber security even more. There are many
reasons why I chose the cyber security specialization. I can say that I chose it because I knew it would be
something related to my profile, which is infrastructure. I had experience working with Linux, networking,
and security, which further motivated me to choose this. Another reason was that the world of cybercrime
and cybersecurity was constantly evolving. Staying away from criminals is a significant part of studying
cybersecurity. I also thought that I would be able to help protect people's privacy and also be able to find
vulnerabilities so that I could share them so that they could be removed. I also believe that the kind of
teaching that requires you to be on your feet and keeps your mind engaged is very satisfying.

My fifth semester was an internship at a company named nSec/Resilience located in Amsterdam, and the
point of the assignment was to define, design, and set up the POC for the scanning platform for the
upcoming I was responsible for investigating the current implementations of competitors' organizations,
choosing how to split services into on-premises and cloud versions, and implementing proofs of concept
based on technical design. The technologies that I needed to use were AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure. I
needed to pick the best one for my project from among these cloud platforms. All cloud platforms provide
different kinds of tools, which were crucial for finishing my task. I was responsible for deciding the best
services that would help me complete my final solution. I managed to do everything very well and
correctly regarding the whole project and the internship itself. Both of my company and university mentors
were satisfied with my performance, and I was very pleased to work for this company.

My sixth was once again my profile, which is infrastructure. The semester was pretty interesting and fun
to me because I had complete freedom over how I wanted to work and learn. I was strictly focused on
AWS, which is my favorite cloud, and I wanted to explore more services in it. My individual project was to
find good AWS security tools that could be used by the company where I did my internship in semester 5.
I had the chance to work with services like AWS Macie for Data Loss Prevention (DLP), AWS
CloudWatch, GuardDuty, and WAF for SIEM, IDMS, and IPS, and AWS Inspector for security scanning.
Another thing was the group project where we had to create a centralized firewall for Sogeti. Basically, we
needed to find a way to update their security groups (rules) with Terraform. It was a pretty decent
semester for me, and to be honest, I had the best performance of all semesters till now.
Also, during this semester, I worked for Sue for 2 months, where my role was junior engineer, and it was
connected with all the clouds and their automation with Terraform.
Personal wishes and goals
Every single semester, I try to have my own personal goals, which are related to professional and other
skills. Certainly, every semester has their own goals, but together with them, I try to have my own as well.
The point was that throughout these semesters, I managed to develop and improve myself in some
important skills like teamwork, being a professional, being hardworking and consistent, organizational
skills, and a lot of other things. Certainly, for this semester, my aim is to be able to pass it, but I believe
this semester is more than just passing it. I want to continue with my goals, but before that, I want to say
that the reason I chose to do another specialization in cyber security is that my first specialization really
peaked my interest, and then I went to a cyber security company, where I also had the opportunity to see
more sides of cyber security.

Certainly, I have way more experience on the blue team than as a member of the red team. As I
mentioned before, I worked at SUE for a couple of months, and there my job was really cloud-related but
included security as well. Another experience I could mention is that during my last summer, I worked for
a Bulgarian company as a cyber security consultant. There, I had the chance to learn how to talk with
clients about their security needs while also advising them about the best possible solutions for their
systems and networks.

Talking more specifically about my preferences for the blue team is the monitoring part. I really enjoy
being responsible for monitoring security events and incidents, conducting investigations, and responding
to security threats. You always have the chance to use a variety of tools and techniques to gather
information and intelligence about potential security threats.

Anyway, I would also like to gain more experience on the red-teaming side. I would really love to have the
chance to learn some of the best innovation and trend-attacking techniques during this semester. For
example, it will be really great to gain more knowledge in password attacks, application attack or maybe
exploit development. The red teaming for me will be something like a side quest and the blue team will be
my main focus.

During this semester, l knot that l have to individual project as well and l have the complete freedom to
choose any topic even not connected to this semester. That is why I am thinking that I would like to do
something with security. My favorite and l am the most experienced in AWS cloud, which l have been
working for most of my semesters. I know for sure that it has the opportunity to explore different kinds of
tools connected with security. Certainly, I have learned quite a few tools, but the good thing is that there
are plenty more tools for monitoring and security scans. I have received advice from teachers,
professionals, and peers that I could combine security with the cloud. This is the reason that l would like
definitely to try work on that during this semester as well. In my personal opinion, it is also good to
combine the things that you like.