A Day in the Life of a Penetration Tester with Carson Sallis

Cybersecurity Mentors Podcast

In this episode, we chat with Carson Sallis, Senior Offensive Security Engineer and Vulnerability Researcher at NVIDIA. Carson walks us through a day in the life of a pentester and shares actionable advice for anyone looking to break into offensive security. He also gives a live demo of fuzzing with AFL (American Fuzzy Lop) and explains how tools like this are used in real-world vulnerability research.
Whether you're just starting out or looking to sharpen your red team skills, this episode is full of insights you won’t want to miss.
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Episode Resources:

GitHub: https://github.com/cybersecmentors/season_3_ep_6

Guest: Carson Sallis

Follow Carson and connect for updates, demos, and career insights.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carson-sallis/

Fuzzing Tools & Resources

· AFL (American Fuzzy Lop)
The fuzzing tool featured in Carson's demo.
Link: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/afl/

· AFL++
An advanced fork of AFL with modern features.
Link: https://github.com/AFLplusplus/AFLplusplus

· Fuzzing: Brute Force Vulnerability Discovery (Book)
A foundational guide for learning fuzzing.
Link: https://nostarch.com/fuzzing

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Chapters

1. Episode Introduction (00:00:00)

2. Offensive Security Engineering Explained (00:01:40)

3. From Pen Testing to Vulnerability Research (00:03:34)

4. The Art of Fuzzing (00:06:42)

5. Finding Real-World Vulnerabilities (00:12:42)

6. Vulnerability Research Demo with AFL (00:18:33)

7. Skills Needed for Vulnerability Research (00:38:39)

8. Breaking Into Offensive Security Careers (00:43:42)

9. Episode Wrap and Key Advice (00:46:19)