Konrad Papaj

Threat Hunter | Penetration Tester

[email protected]

Summary

Offensive-minded cybersecurity professional with a penetration testing skill set and proven hands-on experience across full-scope engagements - reconnaissance, exploitation, Active Directory attacks, privilege escalation, lateral movement, and professional reporting. Currently working as a Threat Hunter, applying adversary tradecraft (MITRE ATT&CK, TTP emulation) to drive proactive hunts, which gives a strong dual-perspective understanding of both attack and defense. Award-winning Attack-Defence CTF competitor and contributor to international cyber-defense exercises (NATO CCDCOE Locked Shields).

Skills

Offensive Security: Penetration Testing (Network, Web, AD), Active Directory Attacks, Web Exploitation, Privilege Escalation, Lateral Movement, Pivoting, Exploit Development, Post-Exploitation

Detection & Hunting: Threat Hunting, KQL / Advanced Hunting, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE), SIEM, EDR, Detection Engineering, MITRE ATT&CK, Adversary Emulation

IR & Forensics: Incident Response, Digital Forensics (DFIR), Malware Analysis, Reverse Engineering, Root Cause Analysis, IOC/TTP Identification, Threat Intelligence

Technical: Python, PowerShell, KQL, Bash, Linux, Windows Internals, Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), Network Protocols, Docker, Git

Experience

Threat Hunting Specialist - Standard Chartered (Warsaw)

09/2025 – Present

  • Designing and building an end-to-end hunt management platform for documenting, tracking, and operationalizing threat-hunting campaigns across the team, standardizing methodology and improving repeatability of hunts
  • Performing proactive, hypothesis-driven threat hunting to identify indicators of compromise (IOCs) and adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) across enterprise environments
  • Analyzing large-scale logs and endpoint/network telemetry to uncover stealthy and novel threats that evade automated detection
  • Conducting deep-dive investigations and root cause analysis on suspicious activity escalated from SOC and telemetry
  • Applying offensive tradecraft and adversary emulation (MITRE ATT&CK) to design and execute targeted hunts against realistic attacker techniques

Analyst, Cyber Threat Response - Standard Chartered (Warsaw)

11/2024 – 09/2025

  • Monitored and triaged alerts across SIEM and EDR, performing root cause analysis to identify IOCs and TTPs used by threat actors
  • Investigated and reverse-engineered phishing and malicious email campaigns, extracting IOCs and producing actionable intelligence for response
  • Participated in Purple Team exercises, validating detection coverage against simulated attacker techniques and improving response procedures
  • Developed automation scripts to accelerate triage and response workflows
  • Represented the team at international cybersecurity conferences (e.g., CONFidence 2025)

Cybersecurity Analyst (nSOC) - NASK S.A. (Warsaw)

09/2023 – 11/2024

  • Deployed and managed a Threat Intelligence platform (OpenCTI) from the ground up, integrating threat feeds and enabling structured CTI workflows for the SOC
  • Conducted malware analysis (static, dynamic, and reverse engineering) and produced detailed technical reports
  • Developed and tuned correlation rules in the SIEM to improve detection accuracy and reduce false positives
  • Verified false-positive IPS signatures and performed application-layer DPI analysis (OSI Layer 7)
  • Analyzed network traffic to identify potential threats and conducted penetration tests to assess security posture
  • Authored and maintained SOC procedures and operational instructions; supported onboarding of new analysts
  • Developed automation scripts to streamline recurring SOC workflows

Education

Bachelor's degree in Cybersecurity
Wyzsza Szkola Ksztalcenia Zawodowego - 2024 – 2027 (In Progress)

Certifications

  • HTB Certified Penetration Testing Specialist (CPTS) - Hack The Box, Apr 2026
  • Certified Defensive Security Analyst (CDSA) - Hack The Box, May 2025
  • Certified Ethical Hacker Master (CEH + CEH Practical) - EC-Council, Oct 2024
  • TDX Arena Penetration Tester - ThriveDX, Apr 2024
  • Red Team Cybersecurity Specialist - University of Warsaw & HackerU, Mar 2024

Achievements

Operation Cyber Flag '26 (OCF '26) - Winner (May 2026)

  • 1st place in the finals of an Attack-Defence CTF organized under the Cyber LEGION initiative by DKWOC (Dowodztwo Komponentu Wojsk Obrony Cyberprzestrzeni / Cyberspace Defence Forces Component Command)
  • Team ByteBattlers - ~40 teams at start, top 12 advanced to finals
  • Two days of continuous attack-defence operations: defending and patching live infrastructure under time pressure while exploiting opponents' systems

Locked Shields 2026 (LS26) - NATO CCDCOE (Apr 2026)

  • Member of the POL/CZE WWW Team in the world's largest live-fire cyber defense exercise
  • Polish-Czech team placed 4th globally

HTB Global Cyber Skills Benchmark CTF 2026: Project Nightfall - Team MVP (May 2026)

  • Team ranking: 33/588 | Challenges solved: 63/69
  • Recognized as Team MVP (most flags submitted on the team)

HolmesCTF 2025 (Hack The Box) - Blue Team (Sep 2025)

  • 22nd place; all flags captured across Threat Intel, SOC, DFIR, and malware reversing challenges

HTB Global Cyber Skills Benchmark CTF 2025: Operation Blackout - Team MVP (May 2025)

  • Team ranking: 38/796 | Challenges solved: 81/103
  • Recognized as Team MVP (highest number of solved challenges)

HTB Cyber Apocalypse CTF 2025: Tales From Eldoria (Mar 2025)

  • Team ranking: 135/8130 | Challenges solved: 67/77

Projects

  • kondred.com - Personal cybersecurity blog publishing end-to-end HTB machine writeups (web exploitation, AD attacks, privilege escalation) and detection/threat-hunting research
  • Active CTF competitor across web, binary exploitation, forensics, and reversing categories
  • Regular participant in Polish and international security conferences (CONFidence, Sekurak / HackSummit)

Interests

CTF · HackTheBox · Penetration Testing · Malware Analysis · Digital Forensics · Reverse Engineering · Threat Hunting · AI / LLM-assisted Security

Languages

  • English - Fluent (C1)
  • Polish - Native