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
