Hi!

I'm Brian Ho

DFIR • Offensive Security • Threat Intelligence • Security Research & Engineering

About Me

I'm a cybersecurity student at USC with experience in security research, threat intelligence, software development, and competitive cyber. I'm passionate about solving challenging technical problems, continuously learning, and making a meaningful impact through technology.

Education

University of Southern California logo

University of Southern California

Expected May 2028

B.A. Intelligence & Cyber Operations; GPA 3.96

  • Activities: USC TACTICS (Co-Director), CybOrg (CTF Director), CybOrg Consulting

  • Selected Coursework: Ethical Hacking, Digital Forensics and Cybersecurity Investigations, Defending and Investigating Compromised Networks, Malware Analysis and Reverse Engineering (Spring 2027)

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology logo

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

June 2025

  • Activities: Computer Security Club (President), CyberPatriot Club (Co-President)

  • 2023 National Cyber Scholar with Honors

  • Selected Coursework: Artificial Intelligence I & II (Dr. Csaba P Gabor), AP Computer Science A + Data Structures, Mobile/Web Research Lab

Professional Certifications

  • CompTIA Security+

  • GIAC GFACT

  • Google Cybersecurity Professional Certificate

Experience

University of Southern California shield

Learning Assistant

USC Viterbi School of Engineering · TAC 325 - Ethical Hacking

Aug 2026 – Present

  • Grade hands-on labs covering penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, and exploitation.
  • Provide technical feedback on student submissions and hold office hours.
CrowdStrike falcon

Intelligence Launch Intern

CrowdStrike · Recon+ Team

May 2026 – Aug 2026

  • Triaged 3,500+ deep and dark web intelligence alerts, investigating threat actors and emerging cyber threats.
  • Conducted independent threat intelligence research and authored multiple reports, including two published.
  • Developed Python and regex tooling to automate repetitive analysis, identify false-positive noise, and improve analyst workflows.
  • Shadowed CrowdStrike's OverWatch threat hunting and Incident Response teams, gaining exposure to their investigative workflows.
NT Concepts symbol

Technical Intern (Software Development)

NT Concepts

Jul 2025 – Aug 2025

  • Developed and deployed AI agents and FastAPI endpoints for natural-language querying and analysis of structured data.
  • Integrated cloud-based Gemini and locally hosted Gemma models using Python, LangChain, SQL, and Ollama.
  • Presented technical work to the U.S. Army Technical Point of Contact and a company-wide audience.
George Mason University monogram

ASSIP Cybersecurity Research Intern

George Mason University · Department of Computer Science

Jun 2024 – Aug 2024

  • Researched VR keylogging side-channel attacks under Dr. Xiaokuan Zhang, developing Unity, C#, and Python tools to collect and analyze controller motion-position data.
  • Achieved 96.1% keystroke-inference accuracy using K-Nearest Neighbors; published a research abstract in George Mason University's Journal of Student-Scientists' Research and presented a research poster.

Projects

01

USC TACTICS CTF Platform & Infrastructure

  • Deployed and maintained USC TACTICS' in-house CTF platform for cybersecurity training and competitions, supporting user registration, challenge hosting, flag submissions, and live scoring.
  • Automated containerized challenge builds, deployments, and rCTF integration using GitHub Actions and rCDS.
  • Configured cloud infrastructure, network isolation, HTTPS routing, and resource limits to support reliable competition operations.
GCP Terraform Kubernetes Docker GitHub Actions rCTF rCDS
02

Enterprise Server & Active Directory Home Lab

  • Built a Dell PowerEdge R620 home lab with mirrored SSD storage and Proxmox virtualization, hosting Windows/Linux VMs, an OPNsense firewall, and Active Directory domain controllers.
  • Configured an ASUS RT-AC66U router running DD-WRT as a wireless bridge, segmented virtual networks, deployed a SIEM, and enabled secure remote Proxmox access through Tailscale.
Networking Proxmox OPNsense RAID Active Directory Tailscale Computer Hardware

Additional Projects

Othello AI

View source code

Developed a competitive AI for the boardgame Othello using Negamax search, alpha-beta pruning, and heuristic board evaluation to optimize decision-making.

Python · Heuristics · Game AI · Algorithms

Wordle Solver

View source code

Developed a web-based Wordle solver using Express.js and JavaScript, generating word suggestions from a 170,000-word dictionary.

Implemented regex filtering and Fetch API requests to retrieve suggestions based on user-provided clues.

JavaScript · Express.js · HTML/CSS · Regex · Fetch API

Competitions

Team affiliations

My CTFtime profile

  • TJCSC

    Competitor · 2023–Present

    CTFtime team ranking: US #1 · World #5

    October 2026

  • 0xf1sh

    Member · 2024–Present

    CTFtime team ranking: US #17

    2025

  • cyberplanet

    Competitor · 2025–Present

    CTFtime team ranking: US #23

    2025

Featured results

View All Competitions

Research

Technical research

Published abstract & poster

2024

Keylogging in Virtual Reality: Assessing Data Vulnerabilities via Motion-Position Sensors

George Mason University · Department of Computer Science

Investigated VR keylogging side-channel attacks under Dr. Xiaokuan Zhang, collecting controller motion-position data without explicit user permissions. Developed a machine learning pipeline using K-Nearest Neighbors to reconstruct typed input with 96.1% accuracy.

Published abstract Poster & code

Research Paper

2024–2025

Side-Channel Attacks in Video Identification via Encrypted Traffic Analysis

Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology

Investigated how encrypted video streams can reveal viewing activity through observable network traffic patterns. Developed a Wireshark/Python analysis pipeline and adapted a convolutional neural network to TensorFlow 2, demonstrating video identification on a limited dataset.

Read paper (12 pages)

Selected writing

May 2025

The Limits of Hacktivism: Bellaby’s Ethical Framework and the Problem of Decentralization

Examines how decentralized hacker collectives challenge ethical standards for political hacking, focusing on proportionality, accountability, attribution, and the risks of AI-assisted escalation.

Read essay (8 pages)

May 2024

The Cybersecurity Skills Gap Necessitates an Emphasis on Critical Thinking

Examines the cybersecurity skills gap through industry research and an expert interview, arguing that technical training alone is insufficient. Explores the role of critical thinking in cybersecurity education and how cognitive diversity and incident-response tabletop exercises can improve security decision-making.

Read essay (15 pages)

November 10, 2023

Don’t be afraid of AI

The Washington Post · Letter to the editor

Published letter discussing prompt-injection risks, attacker incentives, and the role of bug bounty programs in improving AI security.

Read in The Washington Post

CTF Writeups

Technical walkthroughs covering cryptography, side-channel attacks, and Linux exploitation challenges.

View All Writeups