Hello, I’m Mehmet. I’m a self-taught cybersecurity pro with over 15 years of hands-on experience and an OSCP certification. Online, I go by UN5T48L3 (Unstable, Stable). My work revolves around spotting security gaps, reinforcing defenses, and staying one step ahead of modern cyber threats. Over the years, I’ve embraced a hacker’s mindset to fine-tune penetration testing and ethical hacking techniques. My main mission is to strengthen every system I touch, turning complex security issues into straightforward, effective solutions.

Early in my career, I launched un5t48l3.com, which kicked off my freelance work. That’s where I really dove into studying malware, botnets, and various attack tactics—eventually moving into red teaming. I gained a stronger understanding of DDoS defense, botnet analysis, C2 frameworks, encryption, and reverse engineering as a result of my first-hand experience testing countermeasures.

I first shared my observations on YouTube, then on Twitch. Unfortunately, my videos was among the many cybersecurity films that were tagged and banned for “dangerous or offensive content” after YouTube tightened its community guidelines. This incident taught me that sharing security knowledge should be done very carefully because it’s equally crucial to properly educate people as it is to stay ahead of new threats.

To keep on top of my game, I continuously test new security technologies, actively monitor emerging dangers, and snoop around the dark web to see what crooks are up to. Thus far, my path has emphasized the importance of ongoing education and moral accountability. These days, I’m all about producing engaging, educational content that encourages others to exercise caution and makes technology safer for all.

HOW DID I START HACKING?

The first computer my cousin gave me was a Commodore 64. I was about 8 or 9 years old at the time. Honestly, I was just excited to have an electronic device of my own, but I had no idea what to do with it. Back then, there weren’t really any resources to learn from. I’d connect the device to the TV and spend hours daydreaming. Around age 12, I imagined the possibility of something like instant messaging for the very first time. As time went on, I realized there was something called the internet. Unfortunately, in those days, we had very limited or no access to it. When I had the Commodore 64, Windows 98 was becoming mainstream. Since I didn’t have my own computer, I was always visiting friends’ houses and trying to spend as much time on their computers as I could. I finally got my own computer when I was 17, but by then I still didn’t have the internet. At least I could go to internet cafés, save content that interested me on floppy disks or CDs, and then study them at home to satisfy my curiosity. Again, the computer I owned couldn’t handle the things I wanted to do. Even though I had no interest in games, I couldn’t install even the simplest one.

Before I could experiment with the things I was curious about, I had to start fixing problems on my computer, and that’s exactly what I did. Looking back, I realize how much that shaped me into who I am now. When you constantly try to understand and solve problems you’ve never encountered before, you inevitably gain a certain level of experience and awareness. Being incredibly curious about technology while lagging far behind it forces you to become more determined. During this time, I spent hours on hacking forums, day and night, trying to learn anything I could. This, of course, started affecting my schoolwork negatively, but for me, school was just a place to meet friends. I learned a lot from my teachers, but almost everything that’s useful to me today, I learned on my own.

When I first started using a Linux operating system, Debian 5 was available. After many attempts, I finally managed to install it, but I suffered greatly from not being able to use almost any of the programs I was used to. In short, I’ve contributed—intentionally or not—to the development of what we now call “Cyber Security,” which has become very trendy lately. Everything I did up to this point was purely out of curiosity and for fun. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that many people only do this for ‘show’ and make crazy amounts of money. Anyone whose sole aim is to make money won’t last long. To be permanent, you need more than money; you need imagination and curiosity.

In my view, open source is like planting a sapling in the ground. Everything we’ve learned so far has, in a sense, been made possible by open source. Sharing knowledge and allowing others to contribute to that knowledge is the main reason technology has gained so much momentum. For instance, you could say GitHub is like Google for programmers today. Whenever I see an open-source program that actually works, thousands of questions form in my mind, intertwining into a big knot that I still haven’t fully unraveled.

In fact, from my perspective, hacking isn’t just about software, systems, or similar things—it can also be done on the human mind, which is what we call “Social Engineering.” I don’t feel the need to label myself with a title or a name because I care more about how I’ll be remembered in the future rather than what people call me today. The bottom line is, people call us “hackers,” which is quite normal. But some words start to lose their meaning over time, and I think “hacker” is one of them. Because the general perception is that hacker = bad guy, but that’s a huge misconception. Why do you think technology has advanced so quickly? It’s because of curious, questioning people—people like us. Hackers, like any profession, can be good or bad. It all depends on a person’s conscience, character, and what they want out of life.

As for me, my biggest goal in life is to learn. What we know is a drop; what we don’t know is an ocean.