Alexander Jackson Email & Phone Number

Primarily work with Windows systems but was often specifically assigned Linux tickets. Provide application support for Acronis Products to managed service providers. This includes troubleshooting and information collection on systems such as guiding customers through using strace, reviewing event logs, repairing filesystems, reviewing kernel logs, etc. to ensure Acronis products could operate in the environment.

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Linux support engineer (reactive role). Moved into Linux infrastructure engineer (design and deploy / proactive role). Planned and implemented environments for application delivery. Performed intensive Linux troubleshooting such as identifying application code errors, resource bottlenecks, database errors/recovery, stack incompatibilities, and post-intrusion investigations. See below for best-of achievements!Helped discover and characterize a supply-side attack. The results were published in Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/breach-of-software-maker-used-to-backdoor-as-many-as-200000-servers/Noticed this process was running as an incorrect user, so intercepted syscalls to profile behavior, then extracted all text strings to confirm daemons it impersonated. It wound up being a reverse shell (Rekoobe) which attempted to remove its payload after forking - but the process image still *must* be in memory, and so I was able to extract it and further inspect it.Evaluated, pitched, and began rollout of Imunify and dynamic blocklists to greatly improve security for many clients.Implemented mem pressure monitoring. Many monitor swap utilization, but this is a poor method; kernel heuristics ought to be left alone! Instead, a Monit config was set to watch the actual (and new) kernel measure for *actual* mem pressure. This is a good example of why it's worthwhile to poke around and read LWN regardless of experience.Demonstrated a method to profile applications on production systems with web interface. Used cascading match directives to route any exact traffic to a debug pool, then view the results in-browser. Provided per-instance and cumulative timings, useful for dev AND ops teams!Provided a solution for memory exhaustion vulnerabilities in applications OUTSIDE the application layer. Used cgroups to constrain cumulative FPM mem usage. This helped production systems remain up even when the app was very vulnerable to memory DOS.

Vernon Hills, Illinois, United States

Service desk, monitoring, management, and troubleshooting. Provided support from within phone queue and worked with multiple systems such as Cisco Prime, vCenters/ESX hosts, Cisco networking equipment, Meraki, CUICs and CUCMs. Assisted remote sites such as with rebooting APs through PRIME, failing over sites via #bgp bouncing and submitting support tickets with vendors, extending filesystems on Unix/Linux systems upon receiving usage alerts, etc. Tracked long-term PRB tickets to retrieve updates and push for engineering teams to fix reoccurring technical issues.Networked with technology specialists to consolidate TCP access methods and demonstrably reduce access times by up to 90% via a POSIX (Cygwin, later WSL) environment operating on stock Windows 10. This used secure, encrypted SSH port forwarding that could be automated through scripting.Received a PIR after which potential TCP meltdown was identified as a likely cause for outages of critical network routes to customer netowrks. This had not yet been identified by the applications team nor the networking teams and was only found after thorough investigation.Identified potentially malicious code by sight via hex dump to kthread_work(). Here a NOP sled, followed by a function prologue, was found. This was continually being passed to kthread_work() at different indices, indicating likely malware. Later found this was likely due to kernel instrumentation (NOP space for kprobes or eBPF, for example).

Greater Chicago Area

Gulfport, Ms

Worked as both a delivery driver and insider that has both opened and closed the store, prepared food in a timely manner, took orders, and more.

Using the SABRE system to book itineraries, check luggage, and more.Worked under high-pressure situations such as flight delays and cancellations with aplomb.

Computer Science

46 total credits, of which 26 were Computer Science courses. The total credits between the colleges are roughly equivalent to a senior's.

Computer Science, 3.93

45 total credit hours. Listed on president's list for two semesters.