Hacker Interview: Ryan Montgomery AKA 0day

Ryan Montgomery, known as '0day,' is the #1-ranked player on TryHackMe (with nearly 2 million users) and co-founder of pentester.com, a rapidly growing cybersecurity platform. Before pivoting to cybersecurity, he operated three mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities for over seven years, managing 144 beds and approximately 120 employees. A defining achievement was his scholarship program, which provided free treatment to over 100 individuals without private insurance—addressing a personal gap he experienced while struggling with childhood addiction and lacking access to private facilities.

Ryan defines OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) as intelligence gleaned from publicly available sources: records, credentials, images, social media, and archived websites. He has integrated OSINT methodologies into pentester.com, which features Darkwatch (a database of 140 billion sensitive records including credentials, social security numbers, and home addresses) and Identity IQ (facial recognition using 120 facial measurements to locate where individuals appear online).

Ryan gained viral attention through recent activism targeting child exploitation. After discovering a forum-based website hosting such content, he reported it to authorities and media outlets—all refused to publish due to legal concerns. Through investigation, he identified the site owner as Nathan Larson, a Virginia politician who ran for Congress twice, and found that Frederick (founder of The Pirate Bay) was knowingly hosting it. Six months later, Larson was arrested in Denver with a kidnapped 12-year-old.

Unable to accept institutional inaction, Ryan partnered with Dustin Lampro, an undefeated professional MMA fighter (also appearing on The Ultimate Fighter), to work with adult decoys posing as children online. When suspected predators arrive for meet-ups, Ryan and Dustin confront them using preloaded OSINT (names, jobs, family, criminal histories) before police arrive and make arrests. Ryan employs reverse image searching, employee databases, and deep OSINT to identify individuals from minimal information.

A viral podcast clip describing the exploitation content spread over 100 million times across platforms, leading to major podcast appearances including Project Veritas and the Shawn Ryan Show. Khloé Kardashian reshared his content to 307 million followers. Ryan plans to partner with nonprofits working alongside law enforcement for increased prosecutions and potential trafficking ring investigations. He is not monetizing these efforts.

Ryan addressed criticism from detractors who excavated his MySpace history from ages 13–14, when he struggled with substance abuse and used typical emo-era usernames. Now nearly 30, he emphasized that personal growth means learning from teenage mistakes, and his current actions demonstrate his commitment to helping others.