The orphaned boy of the Nung ethnic group - The youngest penetration testing engineer at Viettel IDC

From Orphan to Tech Dreamer

As the youngest child in a family with extremely difficult circumstances, Khuong Duy's mother died when he was only 6 years old, leaving a deep wound in his young soul, forcing him to be independent from an early age. Because he felt sorry for Duy and his two orphaned brothers, his father remarried, the family had a younger sister, and the burden of making a living became even heavier. The family's economic source was a few plots of agricultural land, so on days off from school, Duy and his older brother often took turns going to the fields to help their parents grow crops to raise their younger siblings, working for hire and doing many jobs to cover their school expenses.

Life seemed to have become less difficult, but in grade 12, Khuong Duy once again suffered a great shock: His father passed away from cancer. Losing his father - the person who always supported, encouraged and was the greatest spiritual support in his life, Duy fell into a state of depression. He once thought of giving up his dream of university, choosing a peaceful life like everyone else: "In my locality, education is not as important as in the city, most of my seniors only finished high school and went to industrial parks to work as workers to help their families financially. That made me wonder about my direction. Fortunately, I was able to participate in a scientific research competition and gradually began to learn about information technology over the phone and found that the information technology industry was very suitable for me."

Khuong Duy is productive during working hours with his team. Photo: NVCC

During the most difficult times, the love from teachers, friends and the desire to escape poverty helped Duy get up. He was determined not to let the pain obscure his dream, and with extraordinary inner strength, in 2019 Duy passed the entrance exam to the Cryptography Engineering Academy, which trains experts in the field of Information Security.

Student Journey: Food, Clothing and Code

Entering the university environment in the bustling capital, Duy could not help but be overwhelmed by the gap in knowledge, skills, and living conditions between him and his peers. Without his parents to support him emotionally, nor financial support from his family, Duy often felt sad: “During my university years, I was under a lot of pressure. I saw that my classmates were very good, while I was much weaker in English and information technology. Sometimes, my family situation also made me feel sorry for myself. At first, I felt that I was far behind my peers in the same major. But that pressure made me try twice as hard so as not to be left behind.” Due to those difficulties, Duy had to struggle by all means to continue studying: "I used to do many part-time jobs such as serving food at restaurants, serving drinks at cafes, cleaning stores,... then, when I had a little knowledge about the web, I accepted to make simple websites such as drag and drop landing-pages, wordpress for the seniors in the marketing group", Duy recounted.

Although he is quite young and joined Viettel IDC just 1 year after graduating, Duy has shown very good management skills, leading and supporting his team members to develop together, so he was assigned the role of team leader. Photo: NVCC

It was not until his second year of college, after buying his first laptop with money saved from various small jobs, that Duy was able to really study seriously. From there, he began to delve into technical concepts of penetration testing, web security, and practice through simulation models. Realizing that knowledge in the classroom, although important, was not enough for practical work, Duy took the plunge and approached BugBounty platforms (a security program where businesses connect with a community of experts to find security vulnerabilities in products). These experiences helped Duy develop rapidly in terms of thinking and professional skills.

The youngest engineer in Viettel's penetration testing team

After graduating from university in 2023, Lang Khuong Duy surpassed hundreds of candidates to work at Viettel IDC - one of the leading units in the field of security and information technology under the Military Telecommunications Technology Group (Viettel). With outstanding abilities and a progressive spirit, Duy quickly became the youngest official penetration testing engineer recruited by Viettel IDC. At work, Duy constantly learns and improves testing methods, searches for security vulnerabilities in the company's internal system and the systems of customer partners, and then provides reports and recommendations for the team to handle.

Lang Khuong Duy received honorary awards from Stellar and Nessar. Photo: NVCC

Thanks to his effective contributions, he has received a series of awards: After the first 2 years of working, Duy received the title of Emulation Fighter, was an excellent employee and was in the Top 3 most effective vulnerability detection engineers every quarter... Besides his professional work, Duy also constantly improves his skills and achieves many international certificates such as: Burp Suite Certified Practitioner, WebPentest, RedTeam Operator... These are all certificates with high difficulty and are highly appreciated by the security community.

He was also the first person in the group to discover 6 CVEs (security vulnerabilities) on open source platforms, contributing to the safety of millions of users. Duy has received thank you letters and rewards of thousands of USD from many organizations and major security service providers in the world such as Stellar Cyber ​​XDR, VMWare VCD, VCF...

When asked about the secret to achieving remarkable success at the age of 23, Khuong Duy modestly shared: “Nothing special, I always study every day as a habit to meet my work requirements. The achievements are all results that I feel proud of, although not too excellent, but it is a journey of continuous effort, this is an extremely great motivation to help me always work with the highest energy. When encountering new knowledge, I do not just learn superficially but have to study thoroughly to understand the nature of the problem. Every day after working at the company, I usually study and work from 19-22 hours. After that, I use the remaining time to research and hunt for vulnerabilities on Bugbounty platforms”.

Lang Khuong Duy was honored by Stellar Cyber ​​and Nessar in recognition of his contributions to information security in developing Stellar's Open XDR solution. Photo: NVCC

It is his inquisitive and hard-working attitude that has helped Khuong Duy maintain his position in the industry and achieve milestones that few people can imagine. Currently, Khuong Duy is the Head of the Information Security Assessment Testing Team at Viettel IDC - a position that many people dream of, but he still feels a lingering regret in his heart: "If only my parents were still alive to witness the path I have taken today, they would be very proud."

Ms. Tran Thanh Nga - Head of Information Security Department of Viettel IDC shared: “We are very proud to have Duy in the team. Duy is one of the outstanding young faces of the penetration testing team, not only because of his solid professional capacity, but also because of his extremely hard-working spirit and his proactive learning and improvement every day. Although he is quite young, and has joined Viettel IDC since he graduated from school for 1 year, Duy has shown very good management skills, leading and supporting his teammates to develop together, so he was assigned the role of team leader. At work, Duy is always dedicated, careful and has a very sharp analytical mind. He has discovered many important vulnerabilities, some of which have been recognized and awarded by major companies - an achievement that not everyone can easily achieve. Duy is also a very cheerful, sociable and lovable person. Working with Duy always feels comfortable because he always has a positive spirit, is not afraid to share experiences and support his teammates. Looking at Duy, everyone can see The image of a young person with passion, responsibility and always devoted to the common work".

  Khuong Duy is one of the most outstanding individuals of the company even though he has just joined Viettel IDC. Photo: NVCC

Young people like Duy not only bring hope for the future but also inspire many young people: “There are two main reasons why I persevere in this field. One is that my difficult circumstances since childhood have motivated me to find a stable job, to be able to support myself and my family. The other is my passion for the security field. I want to become a silent warrior in cyberspace, contributing my part to protect cyberspace for the country”. The story of Khuong Duy's determination to rise up is a living proof of the saying: Even if you have a low starting point, as long as you have passion and determination, all dreams can be achieved.

It was the smallest opportunities that helped Khuong Duy rise up, so he wants to bring similar opportunities to those who want to change their fate: “My future plan is to continue to improve my skills to become a true security researcher, to be able to share orientation, knowledge, and experience with young people who share the same passion, especially those who are less fortunate than me in the past. I will continue to use my current knowledge to serve the country”. Khuong Duy's story is not only the story of a person, but also the story of a generation of young Vietnamese people on the path to finding opportunities and asserting themselves with resilience, enthusiasm, and creativity.

Source: https://www.qdnd.vn/phong-su-dieu-tra/cuoc-thi-nhung-tam-guong-binh-di-ma-cao-quy-lan-thu-16/chang-trai-mo-coi-dan-toc-nung-ky-su-kiem-thu-xam-nhap-tre-tuoi-nhat-tai-viettel-idc-823778