Writeups

Written by

Arbaaz Jamadar

Cloud Security Engineer | OSCP | AWS Security Specialty | CySA+ | Threat Detection & Incident Response

Summary

40+ technical writeups with a heavy focus on cloud security research, original CVE documentation, and real-world cloud misconfiguration exploitation across AWS, Azure, and Kubernetes.

AWS & Cloud Misconfiguration Research - deep-dive walkthroughs of the flAWS and flAWS2 challenge series: S3 bucket enumeration and unauthenticated data access, IAM privilege escalation chains, public EC2 snapshot exploitation to extract credentials, Lambda environment variable leakage, and cross-account role abuse. IMDSv2 SSRF exploitation via Spring Boot Actuator, demonstrating how internal metadata service access bypasses perimeter controls and exposes IAM role credentials. Each walkthrough maps the vulnerability to its AWS Well-Architected Framework control failure and documents the remediation.

CVE Research & Vulnerability Analysis - original analysis of 10+ documented CVEs spanning cloud-native and enterprise platforms: CVE-2025-9074 (Docker Desktop REST API unauthenticated container escape on Windows and macOS), CVE-2023-43208 and CVE-2023-37679 (Mirth Connect pre-auth RCE chain), CVE-2022-3294 (Kubernetes nodes/proxy privilege escalation enabling lateral movement across the cluster), CVE-2025-6018 and CVE-2025-6019 (Pterodactyl PHP PearCMD RCE with race-condition privilege escalation), and CVE-2025-59528, CVE-2025-58434, CVE-2025-64111 (nginx auth bypass and container privilege abuse chain). Each writeup includes root cause analysis, proof-of-concept reproduction steps, and defence recommendations.

Wiz Cloud Security Championship - Top 18 Worldwide (600+ Participants) - 9 cloud security challenge writeups from a podium-level finish: container escape via PostgreSQL superuser RCE and Linux core_pattern manipulation, Kubernetes lateral movement through service account token abuse and CVE-2022-3294 nodes/proxy exploitation, Terraform state file race condition granting unintended privileged access, Azure Graph API OAuth client-credential abuse with Entra ID dynamic group privilege escalation, S3 bucket loose-policy bypass for SNS-topic-based data exfiltration, SSRF via Spring Boot Actuator exposing IMDSv2 credentials behind a reverse proxy, and AI-assisted supply chain vulnerability research exploiting vibe-coded application weaknesses.

HackTheBox Machines - 14 writeups covering Active Directory attacks (RODC KeyList abuse, gMSA exploitation, NTLM relay, constrained delegation, SPN jacking), web vulnerabilities (SSRF, SQLi, mass assignment, LFI-to-RCE), binary exploitation (buffer overflow, format string, tarslip), and the CVE-documented RCEs listed above.

Exam Preparation - structured guides for OSCP (first attempt, 100/100), AWS SAA-C03, and CompTIA Security+, plus eJPTv2 penetration testing cheat sheets and API security certification notes.