Poking Around Until Something Breaks (And Then Reporting It to Microsoft) with Morten Mynster

Andrew welcomes back Morten Mynster for a follow-up conversation that's essentially a highlight reel of one Morten's public journey over the past year. Morten shares updates on three PowerShell modules he's released, including his standout LeastPrivilegedMSGraph module, and walks through a security issue he discovered and responsibly reported to Microsoft. Along the way, Andrew and Morten reflect on how putting your work out publicly can lead to unexpected career wins, how AI is reshaping the way people learn and write code, and why getting hands-on is still the best way to actually understand anything. Morten is also two weeks into a new job as a cybersecurity consultant, which came directly from his open-source work.

Key Takeaways:

• Publishing your work publicly, even to a small audience, creates opportunities that a resume never could. Morten landed a job offer without ever applying, simply because someone found his module on LinkedIn.
• The best way to learn something technical is still to get hands-on with it. Reading about it is rarely enough, whether that's PowerShell, APIs, or anything else in IT.
• AI is a powerful accelerator, but over-relying on it without a foundational understanding means you won't be able to fix things when they break, and you risk introducing security vulnerabilities you don't even recognize.

Guest Bio:
Morten Mynster is a cybersecurity consultant and an active member of the PowerShell and security community. Over the past year, he's published three PowerShell modules focused on Microsoft Graph permissions and actionable messages in Outlook, discovered and reported a security vulnerability to Microsoft, and begun public speaking. He blogs at mynster9361.github.io and is active on LinkedIn and Discord.

Resource Links:

• Andrew's Links: https://andrewpla.tech/links
• PDQ Discord: discord.gg/PDQ
• Morten's Blog: mynster9361.github.io
• Morten on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mortenmynster/
• Least Privileged MS Graph Module (GitHub): github.com/Mynster9361/Least_Privileged_MSGraph
• Actionable Messages Module (GitHub): github.com/Mynster9361/ActionableMessages
• Actionable Messages Module blog post: mynster9361.github.io/posts/ActionableMessagesModule
• PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit: powershellsummit.org
• PowerShell Conference Europe (PSConfEU): psconf.eu
• The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/VIEbain7IIg