A Little Bit of Background

I always thought I was too “dumb” to understand the theories and concepts in the field of cybersecurity. Even though I knew how to exploit certain vulnerabilities (practiccally), I never completely understood how those vulnerabilities worked (in theory) and how they became exploitable. During my diploma years, I participated in many cybersecurity competitions, and it was evident to me that for some students the “easy” & “medium” challenges in that competition was real easy, but for others, like me, some of the challenges were painfully difficult. This belief shadowed me for years, a constant reminder that I’m not THAT smart.

We Are NOT DUMB, We Just Lack of Prerequisites Knowledge

But, during my final-year project in a real-world industry environment and by undergoing an internship at a small company where I needed to complete a bunch of tasks by myself, I had a stark realization.

The struggle wasn’t because I wasn’t capable, but rather, I was simply missing a ton of pre-requisite knowledge. It was like walking into a movie halfway through—you can’t understand the plot because you missed the beginning. The same goes for learning complex subjects like Mathematics, Engineering, or even Computer Science. It become almost impossible to fully grasp those complex subjects without first mastering the basics. The gap in my understanding wasn’t due to a lack of intelligence but rather a lack of foundational knowledge. Even though we might not initially see the basics as essential, gaining experience in a real-world industry environment often reveals just how important they truly are. So here’s a gentle reminder: We are not dumb,we just might not have all the prerequisites yet. This realization led me to pursue a degree in Computer Science, to rebuild my fundamental understanding of how computers and digital electronics work, how developers developed the software, and how to structured the system, from the ground up. I revisited the basics I had overlooked or misunderstood in the past.

My Diploma in Engineering Technology (Computer & Networking), which now has been rebranded as a Diploma in Network Technology, wasn’t a Computer Science course but more focused on Engineering Technology. So, I might miss out on critical theoretical knowledge that wasn’t covered in my diploma. For example, we need to understand the memory architecture before we dive in-depth into reverse engineering and exploiting the vulnerabilities in software. We need to understand how a program or a software being executed by a CPU in a low-level concept.

This process was slow, often humbling, but it was necessary. Each foundational concept I mastered laid the groundwork for understanding more advanced theories and solving more complex problems.