Kaleab is a red team lead and cybersecurity consultant with five years of experience in penetration testing, adversary simulation, exploit research, and security reporting for government and private-sector environments. He helps clients identify real attack paths, validate security controls, and translate technical findings into clear business risk and actionable remediation. His background spans web and API security, network testing, AD assessment, red team operations, and AI security testing.
I'm the current Red Team Lead at a national cybersecurity authority (government, confidential), where I've been promoted through five consecutive roles over 4+ years: Penetration Tester → Exploit Researcher → Junior Red Teamer → Senior Red Teamer → Red Team Lead. I've executed the attacks myself and now lead the team that delivers them — giving me rare end-to-end operational depth that few freelancers can offer.
Outside my primary role I operate as an independent consultant, holding a Top-Rated badge on Upwork with a 100% Job Success Score across 15+ international engagements and a 5.0 client rating.
Led design for a platform monitoring large web estates: HTTP(S) checks, TLS expiry funnel, scheduled port & banner scans, keyword integrity, and exposure heatmaps. Produced actionable inventories for IT teams and proactive risk alerts.
Planned and executed an APT-style adversary simulation against a critical infrastructure target. Full lifecycle: recon → initial access → persistence → objective completion. Exposed critical network segmentation failures that triggered emergency patching at the national level.
Mapped a full Domain Admin compromise path using Kerberoasting, Pass-the-Hash, DCSync, and ACL-based privilege escalation. Full attack chain documented; BloodHound graph shared with defensive teams for detection engineering. Findings remediated pre-exploitation.
Implemented custom agent functionality and OPSEC improvements: staged loaders, sleep masking, indirect syscall prototypes. Integrated operator helpers for credential dumping, enumeration, and lateral movement.
Found and documented impactful issues: IDOR in billing APIs, SSRF in file import, auth bypass in legacy endpoints, and misconfigured S3 bucket policies. Provided reproducible PoCs and developer-friendly remediation guidance.
Designed and executed a targeted spear-phishing campaign against high-privilege accounts as part of a red team engagement. Human risk assessment directly drove enterprise-wide MFA implementation across sensitive systems.
APT-style adversary simulation with real-world TTPs, minimal footprint, and collaborative debrief.
Web, API, external & internal network testing with reproducible PoCs and risk-ranked fixes.
Comprehensive AD attack surface review: from enumeration to full domain compromise path mapping.
Quantified human risk assessments that translate directly into security improvements.
Offensive-informed IR support: fast triage, containment guidance, and post-incident reporting.
Custom PoC development, vulnerability analysis, and security research for advisory or internal use.
Hands-on entry-level penetration testing: network recon, web vulnerabilities, exploitation, and professional reporting.
Cloud fundamentals, architecture & security — vendor-neutral skills validated.
Operator-level AD tradecraft, lateral movement, and OPSEC patterns.
Hands-on network/web pentesting labs with reporting best practices.
ATT&CK mapping, detection thinking, and analyst/operator overlap.
Blue-team aware red teaming — log artifacts and detection cues.
Program design & governance to complement offensive testing engagements.
Real-world security uplift case studies & defensive priorities.
Networking fundamentals — TCP/IP, routing & switching. Foundational for network-level offensive operations and infrastructure recon.
Operator-level Windows AD tradecraft and adversary emulation.
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Verified reviews on Upwork profile — Top-Rated • 100% Job Success Score • 5.0 rating across 15+ engagements.
"Kaleab delivered a top-tier adversary simulation that exposed real-world risks we hadn't seen before. His advanced payloads, stealth tactics, and clear reporting significantly boosted our security. Professional, sharp, and highly recommended."
★★★★★ • Penetration Testing & Adversary Simulation
"Great experience working with Kaleab on a web app penetration test — went above and beyond and provided excellent value."
★★★★★ • Web App Penetration Testing
"He is exceptionally skilled at what he does. Delivers on time and communicates clearly — 10/10 experience. Highly recommended."
★★★★★ • Security Research & CTF
"Kaleab was professional and quick. He identified the issue immediately and resolved it efficiently. The whole experience was smooth and stress-free — truly excellent service."
★★★★★ • Web App Security
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