Tribe of Hackers Red Team

7Mark Clayton

“Passion is what drives you to continue to learn and constantly take on challenges because they are more interesting than watching your favorite Netflix show.”

Twitter: @bullz3ye

Mark Clayton (Bullz3ye) is a red teamer, security engineer, and application developer who can’t seem to choose between the three. Professionally he is a red teamer and security engineer but is always developing web and mobile applications at night. As of late, his primary focus has been on DevSecOps, where he is able to blend his security and development experience. Since a young age, Mark has been under the mentorship of a Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) member, who showed him the ropes and taught him the security ecosystem, and he’s stayed true to those lessons.

How did you get your start on a red team?

I guess you could say my path was a bit unconventional. During college, I was originally cut out to be a software developer. My primary focus was building mobile applications on the Windows Phone…because that was going to take the world by storm. I even had a track laid out for me to potentially join Microsoft after my graduation—that is, until one day during my sophomore year a close friend of mine asked me to join his Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) team, and that’s really when it all changed for me.

About a month into training for the competition, I’m sitting at a CentOS ...