Chris Horvatich

  • Getting Back in the Saddle: My First Hack The Box Machine

    After some time away, I’m diving back into the world of penetration testing. It’s an exciting field, and my ultimate goal is to earn the Certified Penetration Testing Specialist (CPTS) certification from Hack The Box. I’ve also got my sights on the Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP) exam eventually, but for now, CPTS is the…

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  • Starting From Scratch | My Journey Building a Secure Homelab with Proxmox, Docker, and Portainer

    Introduction Embarking on the exciting and educational journey of setting up a home lab, I documented my experience creating a Proxmox Virtual Machine (VM), installing Docker for containerization, deploying Portainer for container management, and setting up Heimdall for centralized service management. Join me as I share my insights, lessons learned, and future steps to enhance…

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  • Revamping My Home Lab: Hardware Upgrades and the Quest for the Perfect Dashboard

    A Much-Needed Hardware Upgrade: Nothing beats the thrill of a hardware upgrade, especially when it’s both a bargain and a significant boost. For just $110, I managed to acquire an Intel Core i7-6700 Quad-core 3.40 GHz Processor and 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3/DDR3L 1600MHz RAM. These were destined for my steadfast HP ProDesk 600 G1, which, while…

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  • CasaOS

    Setting Up casaOS on Proxmox

    Introduction: Exploring new solutions and platforms is one of the joys of maintaining a home lab. After my experience with Heimdall, while living in Iowa, I decided to venture into a different home lab OS – casaOS. This post details my journey of setting up casaOS in a Proxmox container and the network challenges I…

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  • Setting Up a Secure and Segmented Home Network: A Step-by-Step Guide

    Introduction: With the increasing number of devices we have in our homes, setting up a secure and efficient home network is more crucial than ever. From gaming systems to work laptops, ensuring each device can communicate safely and effectively is essential. In this guide, I’ll walk you through how I set up my home network…

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  • Pentesting Engagement Reflection – Validating Nessus Findings and Manual Testing

    The realm of cybersecurity is vast and multifaceted, and as a pentester, I’ve often been intrigued by how automated tools and manual expertise complement each other. Recently, during a client engagement, I delved into the fascinating journey of validating vulnerabilities highlighted by Nessus, followed by manual penetration testing using Kali Linux tools. This experience not…

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  • Proxmox Hypervisor on old PC

    Proxmox is a type 1 hypervisor that is Debian-based Linux distro that will allow me to deploy and manage virtual machines and containers. This is the first step I am taking in order to learn more about virtualization. Another reason I wanted to have Proxmox running is to deploy a VM to run a Plex…

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