About

About

Hi β€” I’m Zohir (aka 𝙽!𝙻)

I’m 20 years old and I study in my third year at ESTIN (Higher School of Computer Science & Technology).
I’m a CTF player, a curious tinkerer, and someone who gets weirdly excited by crash dumps and stubborn bugs.

I’ve been to 150+ CTF events and those hours of puzzling built my habits: try fast, fail often, and learn the one trick that makes the next exploit click. But speed isn’t the whole story β€” I also slow down to actually understand real binaries, OS behavior, and why things fail the way they do.

How I got here

It started with puzzles β€” picoCTF, TryHackMe, the little wins that teach you how to think. The puzzles opened doors: static reversing, quick dynamic checks, and then the deeper questions about why a program behaved the way it did.

From there I moved into OS internals and reversing. Studying internals felt like learning the machine’s grammar: once you know the rules, you can ask better questions. That naturally led to exploring how those rules can be bent or broken β€” and that’s how exploitation, kernel attack surfaces, and eventually malware development entered the picture.

I’m not doing this for drama. I do it because I want to understand β€” both how the system works and how it can be misused β€” so I can design better defenses and build stronger, safer tools.

What I study & practise

  • Windows internals: debugging processes/threads, tracing module loads, following handles, reproducing crashes and turning them into explanations. I learn by doing β€” experiment, instrument, and write down the exact steps so I don’t forget.
  • Reverse engineering: static + dynamic, function β†’ flow β†’ structure. CTF writeups train speed; real binaries train patience.
  • forensics (4n6): quick triage checklists, finding injected or hollowed processes, extracting artifacts that reveal truth when files vanish.
  • Malware development & analysis: I’m a maldev student and researcher β€” building small, controlled lab tests to explore persistence, communication, evasion, and how analysts detect or miss behavior.
  • Exploitation goals: kernel abusing and Windows privilege/kernel exploitation β€” this is where I want to get very good.

Where I practise (some of my playgrounds)

  • picoCTF β€” https://play.picoctf.org/users/zx41r
  • TryHackMe β€” https://tryhackme.com/p/Zx41R
  • CyberDefenders β€” https://cyberdefenders.org/p/Zx41R/
  • I also learn from pwn.college-style practicals, practical OS exercises, and a lot of hands-on reversing labs.

A short, honest line

I study every day. I research. I break things in a lab so I can put them back together with notes. I’m learning kernel abuse and Windows exploitation because that’s the hardest, messiest part that actually matters in the real world β€” and I love the work even when it’s frustrating.

Want to follow or reach out?

  • GitHub: https://github.com/ZX41R
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hakmi-zohir-87b896299
  • picoCTF / TryHackMe / CyberDefenders links above

If you want to trade notes, test an idea, or just rant about an impossible bug β€” hit me up. I’m always learning and happy to share what I’ve found.