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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

  2. Jan 2025 – Nov 2025

    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.
  3. Sep 2023 – Dec 2024

    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.
  4. Aug 2023 – Sep 2023

    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.
  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

  • 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

  • Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)

    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 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

  • 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)
  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  clear

The interactive shell needs JavaScript.

Contact

The quickest way to reach me is email.

Social links are set in Settings → Ethan OS

Ethan