Engineering labs

Lab environments and evidence standard

This page covers where the project work is done, how each project is documented, and the templates used to record evidence. The templates are free to reuse.

Environments

Lab environments

Each environment is isolated from production systems and third-party networks. Environment documentation (diagrams and sanitized configurations) is published as it is completed. Until then, each one is labeled with its status.

  • Documentation planned

    Home network and systems lab

    A Raspberry Pi 5, a Windows laptop, an iMac, network switches, a firewall/router, and virtual networks. Used for segmentation, hardening, and log-generation work.

    Related project records

  • Planned

    AWS cloud security sandbox

    A personal AWS account with no production data, for IAM, S3, CloudTrail, and AWS Config work. Account identifiers are redacted from all published evidence.

    Related project records

  • Planned

    SIEM and detection lab

    Splunk ingesting Windows and Linux logs from lab hosts. All suspicious activity is generated inside the lab by the author.

    Related project records

  • PlannedSimulation

    OT design environment

    A fictional paper mill used for architecture, zoning, and incident response design. No real PLCs, plants, or industrial networks are involved.

    Related project records

Evidence standard

How a project earns its status

Every project record contains

  1. Objective and environment
  2. Architecture (diagram when available)
  3. Tools and sanitized configuration
  4. Implementation steps
  5. Test procedure, written before testing
  6. Results, including failures
  7. Evidence artifacts: screenshots, exports, logs, reports
  8. Lessons learned and mapped controls

Status rules

  • Completed requires written results and at least one published evidence artifact. An automated check blocks the site build if a Completed project has no evidence.
  • Planned records describe intended steps. They contain no results.
  • Repository links appear only for real, public repositories.
  • Dates are recorded only when work actually starts or finishes.

Sanitization rules

  • No secrets, keys, tokens, or session data.
  • Cloud account IDs, ARNs, and resource names are redacted or replaced.
  • IP addresses use private (RFC 1918) or documentation (RFC 5737) ranges.
  • No personal data in logs or screenshots.

Templates

Evidence templates

These are the templates used in this portfolio. They are blank working templates, not completed assessments.