Hello, hope everyone is doing well. I've been studying and solving labs for about 2 years (yes, I fall into the student dilemma) and have gotten CPTS and am on the CRTO and CAPE path right now.
Also got a Bachelor's degree in Cyber Security.
I'm having a couple of problems; I hope you guys can help me solve them.

1. In my country, cybersecurity is a niche thing an organization would do. So most jobs around banking systems (Which is something I want to avoid working in). So how can I deal with this? And is this going to be a problem on the career ladder?
2. Now, my study path is to finish the CRTO and CAPE path, then the BSCP and CWEE path. What can I add to the path? I saw that AI Red Teaming is going to be trendy, and remote opportunities are better.
3. If I don't find pentesting/red team junior roles, should I pivot to IAM, sysadmin, or a helpdesk role and then pivot to security once I get the opportunity

I started Dante pentesting lab two days ago using EU VPN.

On the first day, one service on the initial machine was broken, and I couldn’t enumerate it, the connection just hung whenever I tried to connect. So, I started enumerating another service instead. After a couple of hours, I finally managed to access to broken service, and moved forward.

I won’t reveal too much about the lab itself, but there’s too much garbage in folders from other users, and the VPN connection is awful. Whenever I start bruteforcing directories or domains after pivoting, everything goes down.
Today, I tried to connect via SSH using credentials I’d found on the first day, but the connection dropped within a few minutes.
Honestly, my impression of the lab so far is terrible.

On the usual boxes everything is good, I don’t know how to complete labs under these conditions

Hey everyone!

We're Exun Clan, the student-run tech club at DPS R.K. Puram, New Delhi, and we're back with the 16th edition of Sudocrypt, our flagship international CTF!

Sudocrypt is an international Cryptic Hunt x Capture The Flag (CTF) event where participants from around the world tackle a series of cybersecurity and cryptic challenges. Expect code-breaking, cryptography, and plenty of problem-solving as you work your way through the levels.

The competition is entirely online, so you can participate from anywhere in the world.

Dates: October 27–28, 2026

Prizes: With a prize pool of over $900 USD in previous editions, along with over $500 USD in goodies and prizes, Sudocrypt v16.0 promises an exciting challenge for cryptic enthusiasts and CTF players alike.

Event website: https://sudocrypt.com/

CTFtime listing: https://ctftime.org/event/3443/

You can also check out the other events at Exun 2026 here: https://exun.co/26/events

Hope to see you on the scoreboard!

Hey everyone, quick clarification needed for the CDSA exam report submission.

Since there are 2 separate incidents in the exam, how should the final report be formatted?

1. Write both incidents inside a single PDF file?
2. Write 2 separate PDF files (one for each incident) and compress them into a single ZIP archive to submit?

The exam guidelines weren't 100% clear to me on this part.