About
Hey, I’m Michael — known online as Mickhat.
I’m a Senior Training Associate at Hack The Box, part of the Academy team since July 2020.
Outside of work, I run a homelab and tinker with whatever catches my attention. This blog is part of that.
What I write about
- Selfhosting — homelab setups, self-hosted alternatives to cloud services
- Local AI — running models on consumer hardware, privacy-first AI tooling
- Gear reviews — 3D printers, tools, gadgets that actually earn their place on my desk
Certifications
CRTO — Certified Red Team Operator
BTL1 — Blue Team Level 1
CJCA — HTB Certified Junior Cybersecurity Associate
eJPT — eLearnSecurity Junior Penetration Tester
Current focus
Tinkering with a small, security-minded homelab — self-hosting, local AI, and what a genuinely private personal cloud looks like in practice. Right now that spans a ZimaBoard 2 for my always-on services and an Olares One for the heavier local-AI work, plus the odd hardware review and whatever security tooling I’m building at the moment. Outside of that: running local LLMs, getting stomped in Hunt: Showdown, and the usual Academy work at HTB.