Gaurav Poudel

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Summary

Cybersecurity student (Ethical Hacking & Cybersecurity, 4.0 GPA) with hands-on penetration testing, network security, and web application security experience built through active CTF competition, offensive security coursework, and self-directed projects. Certified Network Security Practitioner (CNSP). Competed in Hack The Box’s Cyber Apocalypse CTF 2026 across PWN, reverse engineering, forensics, and cryptography categories. Author of 13+ published CTF writeups documenting exploitation methodology, including a full ret2win binary exploitation walkthrough on a 64-bit ELF binary. Builds real offensive-security tooling independently, including a Python steganography tool for data hiding/extraction. Methodical, evidence-driven, and comfortable communicating technical findings in writing.

Experience

Independent Security Research — ecstasyy

github.com/0xh4ck3rm4n/blog · Ongoing

• Performed and documented 13+ CTF challenge solves across PWN, reverse engineering, forensics, networking, cryptography, and hardware categories
• Exploited a 64-bit ELF binary via a ret2win stack-based buffer overflow, documenting the full exploitation chain from static analysis to working exploit
• Conducted hardware wiretap analysis to recover and analyze intercepted signal data
• Competed in Hack The Box’s Cyber Apocalypse CTF 2026, solving challenges under competitive time pressure

Steganography Tool (Python)

• Developed a Python tool to hide and extract data within image files as part of applied security coursework, demonstrating practical understanding of data-hiding techniques relevant to forensics and covert channel analysis

Data for Good Hackathon — AI Smart Farming Platform (Krishi Kheti)

• Built and shipped an AI-powered platform (FastAPI, PyTorch) in a time-boxed hackathon environment, delivering crop disease detection, market price analysis, frost-risk sowing advisory, and yield prediction
• Integrated and trained models against real-world datasets (PlantVillage, FAO, Kalimati Market, OpenStreetMap), demonstrating ability to work with unfamiliar external data under deadline pressure

Projects

Education

Ethical Hacking and Cybersecurity — 4.0 GPA

Softwarica College of IT & E-commerce (affiliated with Coventry University) · Kathmandu, Nepal · October 2025

High School, Computer Science (Second Major: Economics)

Samriddhi School · Kathmandu, Nepal · May 2019

Certifications

Certification Gallery

Skills