Ross Fisher
Field Engineering Operations Technician — Cox Business

Network engineering professional with 20 years of telecommunications experience, the last four provisioning and troubleshooting enterprise Layer 2 and Layer 3 services on Nokia carrier-grade MPLS infrastructure. GIAC-certified in incident handling and security essentials. Actively building toward a transition into network security — currently pursuing penetration testing credentials and maintaining a self-operated security research homelab. Strong foundation in how networks are built and how traffic moves at the carrier level, paired with growing hands-on offensive security skills.

Certifications
GCIH
GIAC Certified Incident Handler
Active — expires Apr 2029
GSEC
GIAC Security Essentials
Active — expires Dec 2028
GISF
GIAC Information Security Fundamentals
Active — expires Sep 2028
GFACT
GIAC Foundational Cybersecurity Technologies
Active — expires Mar 2028
Advisory Board
GIAC Advisory Board Member
Active — expires Dec 2028
ISC² CC
Certified in Cybersecurity
Expired Jan 2026
CCNA
Cisco Certified Network Associate
Expired Jul 2024
NRS-I
Nokia Routing Specialist I
Expired May 2025
Experience
Field Engineering Operations Technician II
Cox Business — Access Transport, San Diego, CA
Mar 2022 — Present
  • Provision end-to-end Layer 2 and Layer 3 customer services on Nokia production MPLS routing infrastructure, including Optical/Fiber Internet, VPLS, ELAN point-to-point, SIP voice, and Metro-Ethernet circuits
  • Build and execute service configuration scripts using in-house automation tooling to deploy and modify services across the Nokia router fleet
  • Monitor network performance and service quality using Skylight with Accedian Network Interface Devices at carrier-to-customer demarcation points
  • Provide real-time provisioning support to field technicians during installations, troubleshooting escalations, and live maintenance windows
  • Coordinate equipment migrations and service re-provisioning during maintenance windows, updating router configurations to move services from legacy to replacement hardware
  • Staged, provisioned, and led migration of 23-site school district VPLS from Nokia FP3 to FP4 platform with no service disruption during hot cut
  • Led successful troubleshooting resolution for failed geo-redundant SIP circuit transfer
Business Technology Technician II
Cox Business — San Diego, CA
Aug 2018 — Mar 2022
  • Installed, configured, troubleshot, and repaired enterprise Cox Business services including Metro-Ethernet, SIP trunks, IP Centrex, Business Voice Manager, and detection and surveillance systems
  • Rebuilt 40+ camera surveillance system for large campus mortuary; led small team for multi-site surveillance and security system installs
  • Primary escalation technician for complex customer issues across San Diego region
Field Service Supervisor
Cox Communications — San Diego, CA
Sep 2015 — Aug 2018
  • Led a team of 14 field technicians across residential and commercial service operations; drove performance metrics and net promoter scores
  • Quarterly NPS regional top performer; coached multiple team members into leadership promotions
Universal Home Technician
Cox Communications — Santa Barbara & San Diego, CA
May 2006 — Sep 2015
  • Installed and serviced Cox residential broadband, digital telephone, home networking, and home security/life systems across two markets over nine years
Independent Study & Research
Security Research Homelab — DShield / SANS ISC Honeypot
dashboard.therossfisher.xyz →

Raspberry Pi 4 running Cowrie SSH/Telnet honeypot and Suricata 7.0 IDS with Emerging Threats ruleset, reporting to the SANS Internet Storm Center (sensor ID 3000055796). Live threat intelligence dashboard auto-updated every 30 minutes. Authored two threat intelligence reports documenting the Redtail cryptominer campaign (May 2026) and Outlaw/mdrfckr IRC botnet infrastructure (May 2026).

Offensive Security Learning Path
github.com/therossfisher →

Working through TryHackMe Jr Penetration Tester path (top 15% globally) and HackTheBox Starting Point machines. Documenting methodology, tooling, and findings in a public GitHub vault. Tools in active use include nmap, gobuster, Burp Suite, Caido, Metasploit, Responder, and John the Ripper.

Technical Skills
Network Infra Nokia 7750 SR/IXR, Nokia NFMP, MPLS/VPLS, Metro-Ethernet, SIP, ELAN, Layer 2/3 services, TCP/IP, BGP fundamentals
Security Tools Suricata, Cowrie, Wireshark, nmap, gobuster, Burp Suite, Caido, Metasploit, Responder, John the Ripper
Platforms Linux (Kali, Raspberry Pi OS), Windows, SecureCRT, Skylight, UET/Remedy, SharePoint
Security Concepts Incident handling, network security fundamentals, threat intelligence, MITRE ATT&CK (awareness), OWASP Top 10 (awareness), cyber kill chain
Infrastructure Terraform (learning), Ansible (learning), GCP, Git, GitHub, Docker (basic)
Education
AS, Computer Network Engineering
Santa Barbara City College
AA, General Studies
Santa Barbara City College