About Me
Hey there! I’m Dilanka Kaushal Hewage, better known in the security community as r0tn3x. I’m a Red Team Operator at Dubai Health Authority, passionate about offensive security, reverse engineering, and breaking things (legally, of course).
What I Do
I specialize in:
- Red Team Operations - Simulating real-world adversaries to test organizational defenses
- Reverse Engineering - Taking apart binaries to understand how they tick
- Binary Exploitation - Finding and exploiting vulnerabilities at the lowest level
- Malware Development - Creating custom tools and payloads for offensive operations
- CTF Player - Competing in Capture The Flag competitions worldwide
Background
I hold an MSc in Cybersecurity from IU International University of Applied Sciences in Germany, where I researched LLM reasoning frameworks for security applications. My work involved developing novel approaches for guiding AI-powered code generation and vulnerability detection through model surgery techniques.
During my academic journey, I developed the LLM Reasoning Framework - a system that integrates deep-think stages with self-reflection mechanisms directly into LLM hidden states without requiring fine-tuning. Pretty cool stuff if you’re into AI security!
Research Interests
My research sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity:
- LLM Security & Reasoning - Exploring how advanced reasoning capabilities can be leveraged for threat detection
- Automated Vulnerability Detection - Using deep learning for security analysis
- Adversarial AI - Building robust systems against prompt injection and adversarial attacks
- Zero-day Discovery - Applying self-supervised learning for vulnerability research
Certifications
I’m proud to hold several industry certifications including:
- OSEE (Offensive Security Exploitation Expert)
- OSED (Offensive Security Exploit Developer)
- CRTL (Certified Red Team Lead)
- CRTO (Certified Red Team Operator)
- OSEP (Offensive Security Experienced Penetration Tester)
- OSCE (Offensive Security Certified Expert)
- OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional)
- CRTE (Certified Red Team Expert)
- CRTP (Certified Red Team Professional)
- CPTS (Certified Penetration Testing Specialist)
- CAPE (Certified Active Directory Pentesting Expert)
- CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker - v13)
Get In Touch
I’m always open to discussions about security, red teaming, or potential collaborations. Feel free to reach out:
“The best defense is a good offense. Know your enemy, know yourself.”