Forem: Jude Hilgendorf

I Built a Chrome Extension That Auto-Saves Your Form Data Locally (Zero Network Requests)

Jude Hilgendorf — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 10:02:44 +0000

The Problem

You're halfway through a long form — maybe a job application, an insurance quote, or a school registration — and you accidentally close the tab. Or the page crashes. Or your session expires.

Everything you typed is gone.

Browser autofill only covers the basics (name, email, address). It doesn't save the custom fields, text areas, or dropdowns that make up 90% of real forms.

What I Built

FormVault is a Chrome extension that automatically saves everything you type into any web form — locally, on your machine. No accounts, no cloud sync, no network requests at all.

When you come back to a form, FormVault lets you restore your previous inputs with one click.

How it works:

Detects form fields on any page
Saves inputs to Chrome's local storage as you type
Restore button appears when you revisit a page with saved data
All data stays on your device — zero network requests, ever

Why I built it this way

I wanted something I'd actually trust with sensitive form data. Most form-saving tools either sync to a cloud or require an account. FormVault does neither. You can read every line of the source code yourself.

Try it out

The extension is free and open source. If you've ever lost form data and wanted to throw your laptop, this might save you some frustration.

GitHub: https://github.com/TiltedLunar123/FormVault

I'm a cybersecurity student building tools in my spare time, so feedback is genuinely welcome — especially on the privacy/security side. What would you improve?

I built a portable SIEM detection toolkit that converts Sigma rules to Splunk, Elastic, and Kibana queries

Jude Hilgendorf — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:15:34 +0000

The problem

If you've ever tried to manage detection content across different SIEMs, you know the pain. Sigma rules live in one folder, your Sysmon config is somewhere else, Wazuh custom rules are in yet another directory, and none of it maps cleanly back to MITRE ATT&CK. Converting rules between SIEM formats usually means installing sigmac or setting up a whole pipeline just to get a Splunk query out of a YAML file.

I'm a cybersecurity student and I got tired of this workflow in my home lab, so I built SIEMForge — a single Python CLI that keeps all your detection content in one place and converts it natively.

What it does

SIEMForge is a portable toolkit that handles:

Sigma rule conversion — translates detection rules to Splunk SPL, Elasticsearch Lucene, or Kibana KQL without any external dependencies (no sigmac needed)
10 pre-built detection rules covering credential dumping (T1003.001), process injection (T1055.003), lateral movement via PsExec (T1021.002), suspicious PowerShell (T1059.001), SSH brute-force (T1110.001), and more
Tuned Sysmon configuration for Windows event monitoring
Wazuh custom rules with agent config snippets
MITRE ATT&CK mapping across all rules
One-command export of the complete detection package

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/TiltedLunar123/SIEMForge.git
cd SIEMForge
pip install pyyaml

Only dependency is PyYAML. Runs on Python 3.8+.

Example usage

# See what's in the toolkit
python siemforge.py

# Convert all rules to Splunk SPL
python siemforge.py --convert splunk

# Convert a single rule to Kibana KQL
python siemforge.py --convert kibana --convert-rule lsass_credential_dump.yml

# View MITRE ATT&CK coverage
python siemforge.py --mitre

# Export everything as a packaged bundle
python siemforge.py --export-all

The --export-all flag generates an organized directory with Sigma YAML rules, Sysmon XML config, and Wazuh rules ready to drop into your stack.

Why I built it

Mostly for my own learning. I wanted to understand how Sigma rules actually translate to different query languages under the hood, and I wanted a single tool I could carry between lab environments without installing a bunch of dependencies. Figured other students or home lab folks might find it useful too.

What's next

I'm planning to add more detection rules and possibly support for more output formats. If you work in blue team or run a home lab, I'd love to know: what detection rules or SIEM formats would be most useful to add?

Check it out here: github.com/TiltedLunar123/SIEMForge

MIT licensed, contributions welcome.

I Built a Chrome Extension That Auto-Saves Your Form Data Locally (Zero Network Requests)

Jude Hilgendorf — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 13:15:24 +0000

The Problem

Ever spent 20 minutes filling out a long form — job application, insurance quote, registration — and then the page crashes, your session expires, or you accidentally hit the back button?

All that data, gone. Browser autofill doesn't help because it only remembers basic fields like name and address, not the custom stuff you actually typed.

What I Built

FormVault is a Chrome extension that automatically saves everything you type into web forms, locally on your machine. If the page crashes or you navigate away, your data is still there when you come back.

Key details:

Zero network requests — your form data never leaves your browser
Auto-saves as you type, restores when you revisit the page
Works on any form on any site
One-click clear if you want to wipe saved data for a page
Lightweight, no account needed, no permissions beyond the active tab

Why I Made It Privacy-First

Most form-saving tools sync your data to a cloud server. That means your half-finished job applications, medical forms, and financial info sits on someone else's infrastructure. I didn't want that.

FormVault uses chrome.storage.local exclusively. Nothing is transmitted. Nothing is stored externally. You own your data, period.

Try It / Give Feedback

I'm a cybersecurity student and this is one of my side projects. I'd genuinely appreciate feedback — especially on edge cases where form detection might break, or ideas for features that would make this more useful for your workflow.

Check it out here: FormVault on GitHub

What form-saving solutions do you currently use? Or do you just accept the risk and re-type everything?