Skip to content
Connection is secure Connection is secure ethanlinton.com is served over HTTPS with a valid certificate, so everything you type here is encrypted in transit. Network activity Network activity Every window here fetches its content from the WordPress REST API. Each bar is one response, and its height is how much data came back. Nothing fetched yet

Desktop

Ethan

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

  • Network Engineering Routing, segmentation, and network security
  • Cyber Security Threat modelling, investigation, and incident response.
  • Software Development Tooling and automation in Python, Go, and Java
  • Cryptography Protocol design and review - IPsec, TLS, PKI, and what comes after RSA.

Experience

  1. CURRENT Nov 2025 – Present

    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
  2. Jan 2025 – Nov 2025

    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.
  3. Sep 2023 – Dec 2024

    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.
  4. Aug 2023 – Sep 2023

    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.
  5. Mar 2022 – Sep 2023

    System Engineer (Level 2)

    National Cyber Security Centre - Full-time · Wellington, New Zealand

  6. Jan 2021 – Mar 2022

    Systems Engineer

    National Cyber Security Centre - Full-time · Wellington, New Zealand

  7. Oct 2020 – Dec 2020

    Network Engineer

    Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology - Contract · New Zealand

  8. Nov 2016 – Sep 2020

    IT

    Spark New Zealand - Contract · New Zealand

Certifications

  • Master of Cyber Security

    University of Waikato

    Earned
    Expires
  • Understanding of Cisco Network Devices

    Cisco

    Earned
    Feb 2020
    Expires
    Feb 2023
    ID
    P4F8WVBFKCEQQGKF

    Verify credential

  • Cisco Certified Specialist – Enterprise Core (CCNP ENCOR)

    Cisco

    Earned
    Jul 2021
    Expires
    Jul 2024
    ID
    YN2J5Q5P33VQ1P9Y

    Verify credential

  • Implementing and Administering Cisco Solutions (CCNA)

    Cisco

    Earned
    Feb 2020
    Expires
    Jul 2024
    ID
    BYP5MQWDWDREQ2WN

    Verify credential

  • CCNP – Cisco Certified Networking Professional

    Cisco

    Earned
    Aug 2021
    Expires
    Aug 2024
    ID
    W6CZLX8FMLF41XG8

    Verify credential

  • Cisco Certified Specialist – Enterprise Advanced Infrastructure Implementation

    Cisco

    Earned
    Aug 2021
    Expires
    Aug 2024
    ID
    BBB6LG8P3CV4QZ9M

    Verify credential

  • CISSP – Certified Information Systems Security Professional

    ISC2

    Earned
    May 2025
    Expires
    ID
    946550

    Verify credential

  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)

    Microsoft

    Earned
    Aug 2025
    Expires
    Aug 2026
    ID
    C17AD2415DE6C80

Awards

  • 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.

  • Impact Recognition – mEDR Toolkit

    Arctic Wolf · Sep 2026

    Recognised for developing tooling that improved the EDR platform.

  • Impact Recognition – Security efficiency

    Arctic Wolf · Mar 2026

    Recognised for exceptional impact in operational efficiency, and response quality.

Portfolio

  • CRYPTOGRAPHY

    Crypting: The Art of Detection Evasion

  • CRYPTOGRAPHY

    Implementation of the DJ Quantum Algorithm

  • AUTOMATION

    Google Cloud Network Automation

  • NETWORK

    RADIUS PPPoE & Q-in-Q

  • NETWORK

    Segment Routing

  • SECURITY

    AWS Ethanlinton.com

Blog

  • December 13, 2024 · 4 min read

    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

Ethan