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
-
Security Engineer II (TSE2)
Arctic Wolf - Full-time · Sydney, Australia
-
Network & Systems Engineer
International College of Management - Full-time · Sydney, Australia
- Managed enterprise hybrid infrastructure across multiple sites, supporting large-scale user environments across networking, wireless, firewall, cloud, and server platforms.
- Led remote access modernisation initiatives, improving secure connectivity, authentication, and access management for end users.
- Designed and supported hybrid cloud connectivity between on-premise systems and cloud services, enabling improved integration, automation, and operational efficiency.
- Built AI-assisted security reporting workflows to analyse cloud activity, identify anomalies, summarise findings, and produce actionable security insights.
- Investigated security incidents using endpoint, firewall, SIEM, and cloud telemetry while improving visibility, reporting, and response processes.
- Reduced manual administration effort through automation of infrastructure backups, configuration checks, and routine maintenance tasks.
- Mentored staff across networking, systems administration, automation, and security engineering practices.
-
Senior Systems Engineer
National Cyber Security Centre - Full-time · Wellington, New Zealand
- Cryptography SME
- Cryptographic hardware deployment and management
- Cryptographic algorithm development
- Cryptographic generation & distribution
- Technical experience in Networking - Brocade; Juniper; Cryptographic solutions, Cyber Security - risk assessments; penetration testing, Software Development - PowerShell; Python; Java, Managing Networks - International connectivity; WAN; LAN, Troubleshooting - Acted as escalation point for issues relating to interconnecting cryptographic solutions to architecture
- Soft experience in Stakeholder management - Vendors; Government; Customers, Project Management - System Modernisation; Network Deployment, Testing - UAT creation, Communication - Presented to security leaders around the world.
-
Team Lead Engineering
National Cyber Security Centre - Acting · Wellington, New Zealand
- Acting role, intermittent up to a month at a time.
- Managing and mentoring a specialist engineering team across a broad spectrum of fields, inclusive of cryptography, network engineering, information system administration, and national wide area networks.
-
System Engineer (Level 2)
National Cyber Security Centre - Full-time · Wellington, New Zealand
-
Systems Engineer
National Cyber Security Centre - Full-time · Wellington, New Zealand
-
Network Engineer
Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology - Contract · New Zealand
-
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
-
Cisco Certified Specialist – Enterprise Core (CCNP ENCOR)
Cisco
- Earned
- Jul 2021
- Expires
- Jul 2024
- ID
- YN2J5Q5P33VQ1P9Y
-
Implementing and Administering Cisco Solutions (CCNA)
Cisco
- Earned
- Feb 2020
- Expires
- Jul 2024
- ID
- BYP5MQWDWDREQ2WN
-
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
-
Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
ISC2
- Earned
- May 2025
- Expires
- —
- ID
- 946550
-
Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)
Microsoft
- Earned
- Aug 2025
- Expires
- Aug 2026
- ID
- C17AD2415DE6C80
Awards
-
Quarterly TSE International
Arctic Wolf · May 2026
Recognised with Arctic Wolf’s Quarterly TSE International 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
-
Crypting: The Art of Detection Evasion
-
Implementation of the DJ Quantum Algorithm
-
Google Cloud Network Automation
-
RADIUS PPPoE & Q-in-Q
-
Segment Routing
-
AWS Ethanlinton.com
Blog
-
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)
Cisco Certified Networking Professional
Cisco Certified Specialist – Enterprise Advanced Infrastructure Implementation
Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)
ethan@ethanlinton.com ~ $ help
help whoami ls cat about.txt certs projects contact open clearThe interactive shell needs JavaScript.
Contact
The quickest way to reach me is email.
Social links are set in Settings → Ethan OS