# Ciaran Whiteside

> Portfolio and writing of Ciaran Whiteside, a UK-based vulnerability analyst and tech generalist.
> The site publishes long-form cybersecurity analysis, technical project write-ups, and practical
> notes on offensive security research, GRC, and threat intelligence.

This file lists every page on the site worth reading, grouped by type. Articles are analysis and
opinion pieces aimed at security practitioners. Projects are build write-ups covering what was made,
what broke, and what was learned. Only published content is listed; drafts and unreleased pieces are
deliberately omitted. Entries are ordered newest first within each section, and each date is the
last substantive update in ISO 8601 format (YYYY-MM-DD). Every article and project page also has a plain-markdown
version at the same URL with `.md` appended. Those are the links listed below, and each HTML
page advertises its own via rel="alternate" type="text/markdown".

## Start here

- [Home](https://ciaranwhiteside.com/): Current focus, featured writing, and selected projects.
- [Articles](https://ciaranwhiteside.com/articles): Human-facing index with tag filtering and search. Rendered client-side, so it returns no content to a crawler; the Articles section below lists the same items.
- [Projects](https://ciaranwhiteside.com/projects): Human-facing index with tag filtering, search, and sorting. Rendered client-side, so it returns no content to a crawler; the Projects section below lists the same items.

## Articles

- [The attack chain is being automated. Most organisations haven't noticed.](https://ciaranwhiteside.com/articles/automated-attack-chain.md): AI is removing friction from every stage of an offensive workflow - reconnaissance, zero-day discovery, exploitation, scale. And the underlying models are improving faster than the conversation about them. Published 2026-05-31. Topics: cybersecurity, AI, vulnerability management, threat intelligence, GRC.

## Projects

- [Learning Next.js the Hard Way: Breaking and Fixing My Own Portfolio](https://ciaranwhiteside.com/projects/learning-nextjs-portfolio.md): My first serious Next.js build. It started with fast experimentation, then became a real crash course in architecture, debugging, and owning implementation decisions end to end. Updated 2026-05-31. Topics: Next.js, React, Tailwind, TypeScript, Framer Motion, Performance. Live site: https://ciaranwhiteside.com.
- [Building MaisieDouglas.com: From Frustration to Fulfilment](https://ciaranwhiteside.com/projects/building-maisiedouglas.md): A fast, personal photography portfolio for Maisie Douglas, built with handcrafted HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and tuned for strong performance. Updated 2025-05-16. Topics: CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Web Design, Performance, UX. Live site: https://maisiedouglas.com.

## Optional

- [Articles RSS feed](https://ciaranwhiteside.com/articles-rss.xml): Machine-readable feed of published articles.
- [Projects RSS feed](https://ciaranwhiteside.com/projects-rss.xml): Machine-readable feed of project write-ups.
- [XML sitemap](https://ciaranwhiteside.com/api/sitemap.xml): Every indexable URL with last-modified dates.
- [Search](https://ciaranwhiteside.com/search): Client-side search across articles and projects. Requires JavaScript, so it returns no content to a crawler.
- [GitHub](https://github.com/ciaranwhiteside): Open source and personal projects.
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ciaran-whiteside/): Professional profile and work history.
- [Privacy policy](https://ciaranwhiteside.com/privacy): How the site handles visitor data.