So I built a home SOC lab. Then my phone started receiving live cyber attack alerts. Here's how. A few weeks…
So I built a home SOC lab. Then my phone started receiving live cyber attack alerts.
Here's how.
A few weeks ago 1 knew nothing about SIEM systems.
Today my iPhone is receiving real-time security alerts from my own home lab.
Here's what I built and how:
The Build
Started with Docker on my MacBook and deployed a full ELK Stack - Elasticsearch for storing events, Kibana for visualisation, and Filebeat for log ingestion.
The Script
Wrote a Python SIEM from scratch - PhilSIEM - that collects and parses security logs, runs detection rules for brute force attacks, SYN floods, port scans and authentication failures, and stores everything in SQLite.
The Dashboard
Connected everything to Kibana. Watched 2197+ security events flow in with real-time charts breaking down threats by severity and type.
The Alert System
Built a Telegram bot that sends instant alerts to my phone the moment a critical threat is detected. Brute force from 185.220.101.42? My phone knows about it within seconds.
Lessons Learned
You don't need expensive tools to learn SOC skills
Building something yourself teaches you 10x more than reading about
it.
The ELK Stack is genuinely industry standard - what I built mirrors
real SOC environments
A home lab is the best CV you can have
What's Next
Picking up a cheap laptop to run as a live honeypot - exposing it to the internet to capture real attacks from real threat actors.
This journey is just getting started.
Breaking Into Cyber - so the hackers can't.
CompTIA Security+ | CREST CPSA | ELK Stack | Home SOC Lab
#BreakingintoCyber #SOCAnalyst #CyberSecurity #ELKStack #Kibana
#HomeLab #CompTIA #CREST #CyberDefence #InfoSec #CareerChange #optima
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Topics: #kibana, #optima, #crest, #infosec, #comptia, #socanalyst, #careerchange, #elkstack, #cybersecurity, #cyberdefence