Denis Isakov is the author of Pentesting Active Directory and Windows-based Infrastructure, we got the chance to sit down with him and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.
Q: What is/are your specialist tech area(s)?
Denis: Offensive Security
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?
Denis: At some moment I decided to summarize all known information about attacking Active Directory in one source.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Denis: I did loads of hands-on Microsoft infrastructure assessments before.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process?
Denis: Challenge was to have work-life-book balance. It ended up to be work-book only, but thanks to support from my family I did it. Also Packt colleagues were very nice and kind.
Q: What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
Denis: Microsoft has a strong push towards the cloud, but on-premise infrastructure will be with us another 20 years. My main take is that Microsoft is very difficult to deploy and manage in secure way, however not impossible.
Q. Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
Denis: There is no one comprehensive book about these themes. There are some bits and pieces here and there, but not in one place.
Q. What are the key takeaways you want readers to come away from the book with?
Denis: Practical approach how to attack, detect and remediate your Windows-based infrastructure.
Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
Denis: Practice and patience.
Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Denis: Yes, definitely. How many times I asked for help, more time or advice, they were always here to help.
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
Denis: Uninformed, Phrack journals. To keep up to date I follow people on twitter, read news in reddit and talk with people in Discord.
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
Denis: Finish the work, start the book.
Q. What is the one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
Denis: Be careful with timing. Even easy things can take long time and be daunting.
Q. Would you like to share your social handles? If so, please share.
Denis: Here is my Linkedin.
You can find Denis’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here
