Certifications get you an interview. Projects get you the job. Build 12 hands-on cybersecurity projects that give you real proof of skill — the kind hiring managers actually stop and read.
Every entry-level cybersecurity candidate now has a certification. What doesn’t look the same is a candidate who says: “Here’s a Microsoft Sentinel lab I built. Here’s the incident I investigated. Here’s my report.” Every project in this series ends the same way — with a real deliverable you can show a recruiter, not just a lesson you can check off.
Work through them in order to build a complete SOC-to-cloud portfolio, or jump straight to the project that matches the role you’re targeting.
Stand up a real cloud SOC in Microsoft Sentinel, connect live Windows logs, build detections, investigate an incident, and document it like a working analyst.
Investigate a realistic phishing email like a working SOC analyst — headers, links, indicators, business impact, and a full written case file.
Scan a target environment, find and prioritize real vulnerabilities, and produce a professional remediation report from start to finish.
Investigate a real-world security incident from first alert to final report — collect evidence, build a timeline, and document your response.
Proactively hunt for hidden attacker activity in Windows event logs before an alert ever fires.
Take a noisy, false-positive-heavy detection rule and tune it into a high-fidelity alert.
Test a real (legal, local) web app for the vulnerabilities hiring managers actually ask about.
Analyze real packet captures like a SOC analyst — spot suspicious traffic and document indicators.
Audit a lab Active Directory environment for the misconfigurations attackers actually exploit.
Safely dissect a real-world malicious file using static analysis and public sandbox reports.
Stand up real Azure logging, hunt through sign-in and activity logs with KQL, and catch suspicious cloud activity.
Turn your 11 completed projects into one polished, interview-ready hiring portfolio.
Each project is a one-time $20 unlock — full step-by-step modules, instructions, resume/GitHub/LinkedIn templates, and hiring tips, yours forever. Build every lab yourself with free tools, at your own pace.
Don’t want to spend hours configuring a lab from scratch? Unlock a pre-built, ready-to-go hosted lab for that project — log in and start the real security work immediately. Pricing coming soon.
You don’t need a tenth certification to stand out. Pick your first project and start building today.
Explore All 12 Projects