Security Researcher | Blog: aneilan.github.io | Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-neilan-4a271a158/ | Massachusetts, United States
Previously employed as a Threat Analyst, my passion is security research and threat hunting which I currently do in my spare time. This can involve hunting for new phishing threats, analyzing malware, threat actor tracking and public speaking. Using data gathered during threat hunting, I then pivot and find additional threats targeting the same brand, or from the same threat actor. I am a member of multiple online forums, closed channels, and groups dedicated to security research and distributing information on evolving threats. The data I collect and distribute to impacted parties is used to quickly mitigate threats and take down attacker infrastructure.
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Triaged and executed takedowns on client-branded phishing URLS to reduce consumer harm.
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Contacted phone number providers to take down numbers being used in phishing attacks.
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Worked on classifying threat data for url classification system.
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Worked on updating documentation regarding abuse contacts.
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Provided customer service to end users and utilized internal documentation to resolve issues.
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Triaged calls/tickets to appropriate teams if requests could not be resolved.
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Proactively scanned (via Shodan) public infrastructure for out-of-date assets, identifying an unsupported host with deprecated operating systems, and subsequently initiated and assisted in the migration plan, greatly improving security posture.
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Acted as a liaison between Helpdesk and the Security Engineering & Operations team.
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Investigated end user access issues, managed VPN token distribution, and blocked inappropriate sites.
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Authoring blog posts and articles providing analysis on collected phishing kits and IOCs
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Analyzing and sharing intel gathered on threat actors and phishing kits with other members of the CTI community.
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OSS contributions and development.
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Breach reporting/notification to companies exposing sensitive data or assets.
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Contributing and maintaining repositories of deobfuscated phishing pages.
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Submitting CFPs and public speaking around threat hunting and privacy advocacy
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Direct collaboration with multiple threat intelligence teams across multiple verticals, to aid in identification and takedown of malicious content.
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Frequent collaboration with informal cybersecurity peer groups.
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Research appeared in "Safari Zone" section of "ThugCrowd" security podcast shownotes
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Research cited in other media.