Week starting: 4th May 2026
A superb week on the community and learning front.
What I worked on
Community Sessions:
- Delivered a session for HTB Zimbabwe’s second-ever meetup
- Covered Sherlock “FortySeven-1” - a Threat Intelligence exercise
- Task: build a comprehensive profile of a threat actor
- Session went wonderfully - great engagement from the community
The Highlight: HTB Kenya Meetup IRL Edition
- The first physical HTB Kenya meetup
- I was a speaker at the event
- Topic: NTDS.dit dumping and triage
- Covered extraction techniques, analysis methodology, and practical triage steps
- The event was a super blast:
- Met amazing folks in person
- Put faces to names I’ve known online for the longest
- Learned so much from the other speakers and their sessions
- Huge shoutout to the HTB Kenya team for the opportunity
- Might do a blog post on the experience if time allows
Key takeaways
There’s something irreplaceable about in-person community events. HTB Kenya’s first physical meetup delivered everything I’d hoped for and more.
Meeting people I’ve only interacted with online for months (or years) and finally putting faces to names felt like closing a loop. The energy in the room, the side conversations during breaks, the spontaneous Q&A that happens when people can just walk up and ask questions - none of that translates to virtual sessions.
Speaking on NTDS.dit dumping and triage was timely - it’s a topic I’ve been researching heavily, and presenting it forced me to structure the knowledge in a way that made sense to people encountering it for the first time. Teaching is the best way to solidify your own understanding.
The other speakers brought incredible value. Hearing different perspectives on offensive and defensive techniques, watching how they explained complex topics, and picking up new approaches to familiar problems - that’s the hidden benefit of speaking at events. You learn as much as you teach.
The HTB Zimbabwe session on FortySeven-1 was equally rewarding. Walking a group through threat actor profiling, showing how to piece together scattered indicators into a coherent intelligence picture, and seeing people connect the dots in real-time - that’s why I keep doing these sessions.
Challenges and friction
None this week. Community events were worth every minute invested.
Looking ahead
Week 18:
- Back to exam prep (full focus)
- Possibly write a blog post on the HTB Kenya IRL experience
- Continue community momentum
In-person events hit different. This week reminded me why they matter.