Transitioning into cybersecurity after a 25-year career in high-stakes safety, I now build hands-on lab environments to simulate attacks, improve detection, and strengthen real-world defense.

After more than two decades as a professional acrobat, rigger, and coach, safety, precision, and risk management have been at the core of everything I do. Today, I’m channeling that same mindset into cybersecurity—approaching problems from both the attacker and defender perspectives.

I’m focused on developing purple team capabilities, combining offensive testing with defensive analysis to better understand how attacks succeed and how they can be detected, mitigated, and prevented.

• Building and refining a multi-machine cybersecurity home lab ("The Burrow")
• Designing realistic attack + detection simulations across multiple phases (baseline, monitored, and evasive)
• Practicing both offensive techniques and defensive analysis in controlled environments
• Conducting OSINT investigations in ethical, structured scenarios

• Improving detection visibility in multi-phase attack scenarios
• Expanding evasion testing techniques
• Strengthening SIEM analysis workflows

A fully built, continuously evolving home lab designed to simulate real-world attack and defense scenarios.

🔍 Includes:

• Multi-system attack environment (Kali, macOS, Parrot OS)
• Centralized logging and monitoring (SIEM + endpoint visibility)
• Detection testing with and without defensive controls
• Evasion testing scenarios to simulate advanced threats

👉 Explore the full lab → https://github.com/jkgibson-source/cybersecurity-home-lab

Designed and executed a multi-phase purple team engagement in a custom home lab to evaluate detection capabilities against realistic attack scenarios on macOS Big Sur. Identified a critical gap where endpoint and SIEM tools failed to detect user-driven attacks—not due to misconfiguration, but because OS-level privacy controls (TCC/SIP) prevented access to required telemetry. Demonstrated that effective detection engineering depends on data visibility, not just tooling, and produced a full MITRE-mapped case study highlighting platform-imposed observability constraints.

• Relentless learner
• Curious and hands-on
• Thinks in both attacker and defender perspectives
• Focused on practical, real-world skill development

I’m actively working toward a role in cybersecurity with a focus on SOC analysis and purple team operations.

If you’re a hiring manager, mentor, or fellow learner—feel free to connect or reach out.

I spent 25 years performing and coaching in high-risk physical environments—now I apply that same discipline to navigating risk in the digital world.