My journey into cybersecurity began in my teenage years when I opened Notepad, wrote a command to shut down the PC, saved it as a .exe file, and changed the icon to a PowerPoint file before sending it to my friends. It was fun watching them suddenly log off MSN without knowing why.

I’ve always been curious about how things work at a deeper level. That’s why I love ethical hacking. It allows me to be creative to find vulnerabilities. It’s like a puzzle needing to be solved, but you can solve it in different ways to get to the solution.

Security has been something that I value a lot. In my late teenage years I wanted to be in the GOE (Special Operations Group) which is the elite tactical unit of Portugal’s Public Security Police, similar to SWAT in the United States. So, when I turned 18 I passed the tests to join the military’s Special Operations. But life doesn’t always go as planned, and sometimes it hits hard and forces you in a different direction.

Being creative is also something that I value a lot. I took a 2D animation course because I loved the freedom to create anything from scratch. I could write any story where anything was possible.

But after the course, I realized that what I really enjoyed was cinema. So, I took online courses in photography, video editing, screenwriting, graphic design, and filmmaking. Eventually, I enrolled in a film university, where I studied for a year.

Now, I feel like I was meant to be an ethical hacker. It combines security with creativity which is the best of both worlds for me.

In the end, you always find your way back to what you were meant to be.