About Me
SME in network security and high-grade cryptography
- CISSP
- CCNP
- M.CyberSec (Hons 1st)
Cybersecurity engineer, infrastructure nerd, and chronically online.
I’ve spent my career working across high-assurance government environments, enterprise infrastructure, networking, and security operations. These days, I’m focused on security engineering, threat investigation, and figuring out how things break – preferably before someone else does.
When I’m not staring at terminals, or packet captures, I’m probably still staring at a screen for an entirely different reason.
Experienced in
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Network Engineering Routing, segmentation, and network security
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Cyber Security Threat modelling, investigation, and incident response.
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Software Development Tooling and automation in Python, Go, and Java
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Cryptography Protocol design and review - IPsec, TLS, PKI, and what comes after RSA.
Experience
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Security Engineer II (TSE2)
Arctic Wolf - Full-time · Sydney, Australia
- Awards & Recognition
- Q4 FY26 TSE International Award - awarded within first six months
- Pack Impact - Security Triage & Investigation
- Pack Impact - mEDR Toolkit
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Network & Systems Engineer
International College of Management - Full-time · Sydney, Australia
- Managed and engineered enterprise hybrid infrastructure across multiple sites, supporting an environment of 10,000+ users across Cisco networking and wireless, Fortinet/Cisco firewalls, Windows and Linux servers, Azure and Entra ID.
- Led secure remote-access modernisation initiatives, improving connectivity, authentication and access management across the organisation. Designed and supported hybrid connectivity between on-premise infrastructure and Azure, while managing Windows and Linux server environments and enterprise networking infrastructure.
- Investigated security incidents using endpoint, firewall, SIEM and cloud telemetry, and developed AI-assisted security reporting workflows to analyse activity, identify anomalies, summarise investigations and produce actionable security insights.
- Automated infrastructure backups, configuration validation and routine administration to reduce manual operational effort and improve consistency across the environment.
- Provided technical guidance and mentoring across networking, systems administration, automation and security engineering, while acting as an escalation point for complex infrastructure and security issues.
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Senior Systems Engineer
National Cyber Security Centre - Full-time · Wellington, New Zealand
- Cryptography SME and Senior Systems Engineer specialising in high-assurance cryptographic systems, secure network architecture and cyber security within New Zealand Government environments.
- Served as a senior escalation point for complex technical issues involving the integration of cryptographic systems into secure network and security architectures. Developed cryptographic algorithms, led critical system modernisation projects, and conducted cyber security risk assessments, security testing and penetration testing. Also developed tooling and automation to improve engineering and operational workflows.
- Responsible for the deployment, integration and lifecycle management of cryptographic hardware and supporting infrastructure, including cryptographic generation and distribution processes. Worked across complex LAN, WAN and international network environments.
- Owned the technical validation process for new cryptographic hardware software releases, leading acceptance testing and providing formal approval for operational use before deployment was permitted across other organisations.
- Worked closely with government stakeholders, customers and technology vendors on system modernisation and network deployment projects. Communicated complex technical and security concepts to senior stakeholders and presented to security leaders internationally.
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Team Lead Engineering
National Cyber Security Centre - Acting · Wellington, New Zealand
- Acted as Team Lead Engineering for periods of up to a month at a time, leading a specialist engineering team responsible for critical national infrastructure and high-assurance technical environments.
- The team operated across cryptography, network engineering, systems administration and national wide area networks. Provided technical leadership, mentoring and escalation support across multidisciplinary engineering work while maintaining delivery and operational continuity.
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System Engineer (Level 2)
National Cyber Security Centre - Full-time · Wellington, New Zealand
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Systems Engineer
National Cyber Security Centre - Full-time · Wellington, New Zealand
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Network Engineer
Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology - Contract · New Zealand
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IT
Spark New Zealand - Contract · New Zealand
Certifications
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Master of Cyber Security
University of Waikato
- Earned
- —
- Expires
- —
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Understanding of Cisco Network Devices
Cisco
- Earned
- Feb 2020
- Expires
- Feb 2023
- ID
- P4F8WVBFKCEQQGKF
-

Cisco Certified Specialist – Enterprise Core (CCNP ENCOR)
Cisco
- Earned
- Jul 2021
- Expires
- Jul 2024
- ID
- YN2J5Q5P33VQ1P9Y
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Implementing and Administering Cisco Solutions (CCNA)
Cisco
- Earned
- Feb 2020
- Expires
- Jul 2024
- ID
- BYP5MQWDWDREQ2WN
-

CCNP – Cisco Certified Networking Professional
Cisco
- Earned
- Aug 2021
- Expires
- Aug 2024
- ID
- W6CZLX8FMLF41XG8
-

Cisco Certified Specialist – Enterprise Advanced Infrastructure Implementation
Cisco
- Earned
- Aug 2021
- Expires
- Aug 2024
- ID
- BBB6LG8P3CV4QZ9M
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CISSP – Certified Information Systems Security Professional
ISC2
- Earned
- May 2025
- Expires
- —
- ID
- 946550
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Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)
Microsoft
- Earned
- Aug 2025
- Expires
- Aug 2026
- ID
- C17AD2415DE6C80
Awards
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Quarterly International TSE
Arctic Wolf · May 2026
Recognised with Arctic Wolf’s Quarterly International TSE Award for outstanding performance and impact across the international Triage Security Engineering organisation. Received within my first six months at the company, the award reflected strong contributions to investigations, technical improvement, and the wider team.
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Impact Recognition – mEDR Toolkit
Arctic Wolf · Sep 2026
Recognised for developing tooling that improved the EDR platform.
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Impact Recognition – Security efficiency
Arctic Wolf · Mar 2026
Recognised for exceptional impact in operational efficiency, and response quality.
Portfolio
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Crypting: The Art of Detection Evasion
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Implementation of the DJ Quantum Algorithm
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Google Cloud Network Automation
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RADIUS PPPoE & Q-in-Q
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Segment Routing
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AWS Ethanlinton.com
Blog
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Passing the CISSP: My Study Journey and Exam Experience
Introduction I sat – and passed – the CISSP exam. Passing the CISSP was no small feat. I spent approximately 140 days studying, working through a range of study materials before I felt confident enough to attempt the four-hour exam. I passed on my first attempt at question 145, with around 50 minutes remaining. Looking […]
Crypto Lab
A small workbench over the browser's own cryptography, running three primitives on input you provide. Nothing is sent anywhere — every value is produced locally and discarded when the window closes.
- Authenticated encryption — AES-256-GCM, keyed by PBKDF2-SHA256 over your passphrase. Flip a single bit of the ciphertext and the tag check refuses the whole message.
- Signatures — ECDSA over P-256. Sign a message, then edit one character and watch verification fail as you type.
- Digests — SHA-256, shown beside the digest of the same input with one bit changed, with every moved bit of the 256 marked.
The lab needs JavaScript, and a browser only exposes its cryptography to a page served over HTTPS.
Terminal
ethan@ethanlinton.com ~ $ whoami
Ethan — SME in network security and high-grade cryptography
CISSP · CCNP · M.CyberSec (Hons 1st)
ethan@ethanlinton.com ~ $ ls
about.txt experience/ certs/ awards/ projects/ blog/ contact
ethan@ethanlinton.com ~ $ certs
Master of Cyber Security
Understanding of Cisco Network Devices
Cisco Certified Specialist – Enterprise Core (CCNP ENCOR)
Implementing and Administering Cisco Solutions (CCNA)
CCNP – Cisco Certified Networking Professional
Cisco Certified Specialist – Enterprise Advanced Infrastructure Implementation
CISSP – Certified Information Systems Security Professional
Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)
ethan@ethanlinton.com ~ $ help
help whoami ls cat about.txt certs projects contact open clear
The interactive shell needs JavaScript.
Contact
The quickest way to reach me is email.
Social links are set in Settings → Ethan OS