Women in Information Security: Sharka

Due to popular demand, my women in information security interview series is back for autumn! This marks the second anniversary since I started. Some of my subjects in this round have been waiting since last spring, so getting to chat with them has been long overdue.

Let’s start with Sharka, a penetration tester who is full of enthusiasm. She wants to get some shout-outs to some of her favourite Twitter accounts: SureCloud, OWASP Manchester, DEF CON Paris, BSides Athens, MazuTech and Chrissy “5w0rdfish” Morgan.

Kim Crawley: So Sharka, please tell me a bit about what you do.

Sharka: I am cybersecurity consultant and pentester at SureCloud by day. They are awesome because I get to hack all infrastructure, web apps and payment systems. Also, I get to follow my passion: social engineering and testing physical security. By night or my free time, I am a bug bounty hunter. I am very involved in the hacker community. I am one of the Manchester OWASP Chapter organizers and co-founder of the one and only DEF CON group in Paris. I’m also an ambassador for BSides Athens. Additionally, I  research with my friend Chrissy under the Mazu project. It’s meant to be a unique project that looks at the world and its vulnerabilities from both the offensive (me) and defensive (Chrissy) side. I am coming up with exploits that she is trying to defend against. Recently, our research has been heavily focused around RFID and specifically around the new Proxmark3 RDV4.0.

KC: Your work sounds varied and exciting. How did you get started in cybersecurity in the first place?

S: My first hack was when I was around 8 years old. The first hack was to manipulate my blood glucose meter. I figured (Read more...)