Zero Trust: How Modern Networks Actually Work
Infrastructure · 6 chapters · Packets → Zero Trust
Incoming transmission
A hacker is attempting to break into some computer on the internet right now. Not in a movie. Right now. Statistically, an attack happens somewhere every 39 seconds. And the uncomfortable truth? Most of them succeed not because attackers are geniuses, but because defenders didn't understand their own network well enough to close the obvious doors.
I know this because it happened to me. The attacker who got into Coastal Data Systems didn't use some exotic trick. They scanned our public IP addresses, found a Jenkins server on port 8080 that I'd forgotten about, used a known vulnerability with a public exploit, and walked straight into a flat network with zero internal segmentation. Every single step could have been stopped. None of it was.
Six chapters. We start with how networks actually work — IPs, DNS, packets — and build up to firewalls, real attacks, encryption, and modern Zero Trust architecture. I'm not going to talk down to you. I'm going to explain this the way I wish someone had explained it to me, before the breach.
By the end, you'll understand what's happening every time you load a web page. More importantly: you'll know where the cracks are, and how to close them before someone finds them for you.
— Commander Shepard
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