It Happened: My story @Appsecco

I started writing this blog in Goa at NULLCON 2020, the same conference where everything started. In 2018, when I came to Nullcon as a student to meet people, learn and explore, I, fortunately, met Akash Mahajan.

Flashback

I was sitting with my friend and while Akash came to our table and sat. A discussion about age and learning started then Akash asked everybody to calculate something. I’ ll come back to the details later, but before that he mentioned a lot of things which changed my perspective of thinking about learning. I don’t remember the exact words, but they had immensely deep meaning because it made me think every day after that moment.

Let’s come back to the calculation details, he asked everyone sitting around the table to calculate something based on the present age. He gave the formula and asked to calculate the number of hours left which can be made productive in life. Keeping my age 60 as my productive age, I calculated some 84,000 productive hours left in my life. Since that moment I seriously started counting my number of hours because 84,000 seemed less to me and every hour which passed, I felt my life span reducing. He made an everlasting impact on me.

My first internship mail

Then one day, I mailed Akash to help me regarding the internship, in return he sent a mail saying someone from my company will reach out to you regarding the internship. After reading this mail I was not able to believe my eyes “what did I just read? “.

The mail said “Thank you for reaching out. Someone from my team will get in touch in the next 2–3 days to take this forward”. Believe it or not, this mail brought a drastic change in my life. On 23rd March I received mail from Abhisek Datta, asking for a resume update. I shared the resume with him. On 30th March, I had my first round of interviews taken by Abhisek Datta. Then on 3rd April, I had my second round of interviews taken by Riyaz Walikar. I had no idea who I was talking to but had faith something great is going to happen.

Appsecco as an intern

On 14th May, I joined Appsecco as an intern and I was welcomed by everyone. From day one, I was assigned what I have to learn because my internship was only for 28 days. I was worried just like others what will happen on day one or how I will adjust but everyone at Appsecco treated me like I am already a member of the Appsecco family. I had a chance to interact with everyone at Appsecco. In my 28 days of internship, everyone had given me the gist of their specialties. I learned so many cool things that for me it was like memory overflow. In other words, if I can say in my two and a half years of graduation whatever I learned was nothing as compared to what I learned in my 28 days of internship. Also, the incredible things I learned kept me busy for the next one and a half years of my graduation.

☐ Burp Suite

☐ OWASP Top 10

☐ DNS Recon

☐ Web Testing Tools

☐ Cloud Security

☐ Node.JS

☐ Markdown

☐ Docker

☐ Gitlab/netlify

☐ CFP format

In short, I would like to mention that I used to feel like I am at home in that office. I used to stay late. Let me tell you the best part of staying late. In the evening when everyone used to leave then only I and Riyaz used to be left at the end. He used to play songs in the evening and then we both used to work. He even used to ask me to play my favorites (Punjabi collections).

On my last day internship, we had an outing to Escape rooms and dinner party at Akash’s house where I met Lubaina and Richa and Akash’s mom. I never forget that last day because I saw a family there more than a company.

Appsecco Team

I would like to start with Riddhi Shree. She taught me a lot of things in my internship. From day one, she used to sit with me and we both used to learn together, as she also joined only one week before my internship.

Riddhi has a really unique way of going through the things she learns. We finished the book “BurpSuite essentials” in one week with hands-on practice. It was the first book that I read completely in such a short period of time; It really encouraged me a lot from inside.

Bharath

I assume that you have already read other stories of wonderland(Appsecco) and have read that Bharath speaks less and I ‘ll repeat the same yes he speaks less but he understands things really well and the best part is his calm nature. He does not get frustrated if you ask anything again and again. He helped me with my static website and asked me to submit a paper at BSides Delhi 2018. Recently I came to know about his unique skill of making omelette, he usually brings one for lunch and I tried once it tasted really good.

Madhu Akula

Our Automation Ninja with cool stuff and uber-cool techniques. He mentored me every day for what I could do with the things. He helped me whenever I was stuck in what to do and what not to do. He taught me markdown, docker, writing paper and an endless number of things.

Subash

He is another person who understood me and helped me. He also used to ask me in between if I needed any help. He taught me Node.js and how he used it to build his project DVNA. I remember my last day of internship when he told me many things that I can go and explore when I reach back home.

Riyaz Walikar

Whatever I speak, will be less for him. I can’t define him with the following statements, but I will try. He is the guy who creates his own bug when there is no bug in the application. Believe me, he is one of the most experienced in security, while he is doing the assessment or testing, he talks with the application like both are friends. And the amount of work he does is insane, but still managed to teach me his skills in my internship. Also, during my internship, we used to play PUBG and listen to songs in the evening. Now you can imagine how cool he is.

Abhisek Datta

Abhisek is another personality whom I look up to. He is an accomplished security professional. He treats people so well that I can’t explain. I remember when he used to come to the office on Friday. We used to get lunch with the team. He gave me many opportunities to learn one of them is his training pass of Advance Infrastructure Security Assessment. I really get inspired when I see the amount of work he has done for the community. If you ask me to choose a security professional to work on a project, then it would be Abhisek Datta.

Akash Mahajan

I look up to him for mentorship. His ideologies are so pure and perfect that sometimes it puts me in deep thoughts that how someone knows the things so perfectly. He offered me an internship and during the internship, he taught me how to manage things and be productive. I was not part of any community, but his words inspired me so deep that I started giving talks at Null and then gradually became Null Chandigarh chapter lead.

He also asked me to make a wish list and keep updating it. I did make one, but if you ask about it now then it has changed and become bigger

My wish list during my internship in 2018

How I joined Appsecco as Full Time Employee

So, companies started coming to my university for On-Campus hiring, but no company ever attracted me. There were many things like either the profile was not there which I wanted or the company itself. I learned one thing at Appsecco. It does not matter how big the company is or how much you are getting. If the people with whom you are working do not make you feel like home, then it’s not worth it.

The above image proves my statement and if you ever had a chance to visit Appsecco, then don’t forget to check the above thing kept at one of the desks.

I had few companies in my mind and Appsecco was on top of them, but I never thought that I would get a job at Appsecco. One day I mailed Akash about Appsecco hiring freshers. He asked me to mail him when I can join so that he can arrange my interviews. Writing mail to Akash has always been a big deal to me. I used to check the mail many times for any mistakes more than I checked my phone in a day. So, I wrote my mail and attached my profile. I sent the mail but google messed it. I updated my name as Pankaj Mouriya from “rootrwx” before sending the mail, but it did not update on time and also google somehow made autocorrect “Akash” to “Aakash”. So, in reply to my mail, Akash mentioned my mistakes and mentioned: “Not impressed so far”. I was like how this happened, I felt very bad that day. Because when you send a job application to a company and it is not perfect then it makes you look like you don’t respect the person and the company. But things went on, Akash is a kind of person who may get pissed on your mistakes but then forgets everything and talks like nothing has ever happened.

My interviews were arranged, and I gave them with my all determination and prepared to the fullest of my capability. After my interviews took place, I made one decision that I would not like to discuss, it was as a result of showing impatience because all of my friends were getting placed but it almost made me lose Appsecco or you can say my dream job was going out of my reach. But I again had a conversation with Riyaz, and Akash and I got rid of that situation; this increased my respect towards them even more.

On 20th December 2019, I received mail from Akash, confirming my Job at Appsecco. I had a situation going on with me, but this mail solved everything. On 21st December 2019, I received my offer letter and I started my preparation and packing.

I reached Bangalore on 3rd Jan 2020. I was extremely excited for 6th Jan, my first day at Appsecco. I was all set, planned and prepared for my first day.

My 90 days of the journey

On 6th January 2020, I reached the office, an hour early and was standing in front of the office with my mind full of thoughts about how things will go and then I stepped in the office. My adrenaline was rushing, but I knew the people at Appsecco and also how good they are. At 9:30 a.m., I entered the office, and everyone welcomed me. There were four new faces other than the people I mentioned above. Our Project Manager Prashanth Mulgundmath, Shruthi and Sunesh and our intern Ayush Priya from DevSecOps team. As it was my first day, so I was not given much work. The paperwork was done and then I sat beside Madhu and enjoyed and learned some new cool stuff from him again as earlier.

Listening to Riyaz jokes is really fun. Before cracking jokes, he asks everybody to listen and then he cracks bad joke, but his jokes are worth listening to.

Our Automation Ninja Leaving us

While things were going smoothly, I came to know about Madhu moving abroad to a new company in Amsterdam. I was shocked because he was one of the closest people to me with whom I used to sit and work. Having lunches with him and listening to him and his ideas of learning and exploring new things can’t be replaced by anyone. Before he left, we celebrated his last day by going to his favorite restaurant “Bombay Brasserie — Indiranagar”

Fun at Appsecco

One day Shruthi asked me to be part of the Fun committee at Appsecco, as it will help me to explore Bangalore. It took a few days to decide because I had no idea that I would be able to find time other than my work; then I answered her with yes. As of now, I have only one task of exploring new places for Friday lunches. With time, this committee will be adding more fun activities organised in Appsecco. Now as I am talking about lunch, I will be happy to talk about Shruthi. She is an awesome woman, coordinates with the team and understands the situations. She has so many calls to attend, even then she manages fun times for the team like thinking about yoga classes for better health, Friday lunches, fun activities at Appsecco. Also, not to forget, on Friday lunches, she is the only person who eats vegetarian food after me and being vegetarian I do get the company. We both order food which we like and share and eat.

Nullcon 2020

As I mentioned above, I started this blog while I was in Goa a few days back. So it becomes mandatory to mention Nullcon 2020 also. This year it was a pleasure at a new venue, a big hotel and a part of an incredible team. I was given the training pass of Riyaz and Bharath’s training. The three-day training was great learning, Bharath did all the presenting tasks and Riyaz did the explanation and troubleshooting part, not to forget his bad jokes there even in the training. In my training for three days, I still felt something missing because the whole team had not arrived there. Then on 4th March, Sunesh and Shruthi came. Sunesh was our cameraman and he should be. You should follow him on Instagram and should check his photography skills. Looking at the photos feels like someone professional has clicked it. If you follow us and see our team pics and find them beautiful then you can give the best photography award to Sunesh without giving a second thought.

When the whole team arrived, we had fun. In the post-conference party of Nullcon I danced with my team members, it was a real enjoyment. On the day of the OWASP Seaside party, I also had the opportunity to dance with Akash which I never imagined. At the end of the party, Akash again mentioned a few things that were worth listening to.

Great Leadership and Virtual Lunches

The whole team came back from Nullcon, we all were again back to work then we started coming to know that most of the international conferences are canceled or delayed because of Coronavirus spreading badly. We all became concerned about it when it started in India and WHO declared it pandemic. Here’s, the best part now, Akash and Gwilym, our Leaders and the top management handled the whole COVID-19 situation so well as if they had everything already in the plan. They both updated us on every new update about the situation. Gwilym and Akash monitored the situation closely and informed us to work from home. The decisions were pro-active. They both used to take an update of our current locations and situations. I was confused about staying in Bangalore or going back to hometown. I discussed with Akash and he told me the situation which will be in upcoming days. I listened to him and reached my hometown and believe me the next day only Bangalore got locked down and most trains, flights, and buses got canceled. The point is when you have such great people caring for you in a company then what else you need.

Now we all are in our homes but still connected. We have our Friday and Monday virtual lunches where we all sit together and have our lunch over zoom call. Isn’t it interesting? Also, I enjoy listening to Gwilym and he talking about zombies. I still haven’t met him in person as he is based in the UK, but based on the HR interview and virtual lunches, Gwilym is a nice person and he really cares about his people.

So this is my story to this awesome wonderland (Appsecco) between Nullcon 2018 and Nullcon 2020. My time at Appsecco till now has been full of knowledge and adventure. I have a lot to learn and grow and I know that I definitely have the platform. My journey to this wonderland has been great and will be great further. I still have not mentioned most of the things which I wanted to but will add up someday.