Tim Kircher, a Junior cyber security student at the University of Southern Florida, took the opportunity to obtain experience in the real world at the Institution's Security Operations Center.
“I opened my eyes to many of the general opportunities and paths within cybersecurity,” says Kircher, who is an intern in the socist of the University of Southern Florida. He adds that working in the SOC empowers him and other students. “It gives us the tools and skills to think outside the box and think critically, while learning the critical tools and techniques of cybersecurity.”
Kircher is one of the many throughout the country that benefits from an increasingly popular strategy to recruit students to help ensure school networks of the growing number of cybersecurity threats. The strategy was <a target="_blank" data-analytics-id="inline-link" href="https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/digital-transformation/how-universities-are-tapping-students-and-ai -to-fight-the-growing-threat-of-cybercrime” target=”_blank” data-url=”https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/digital-transformation/how-universities-are-tapping-students-and-ai -to-fight-the-growing-threat-of-cybercrime” referrerpolicy=”no-referrer-when-downgrade” data-hl-processed=”none”>Recently highlighted by Microsoft
The approach is a mutual benefit that prepares students with experience in the real world and helps universities in their ongoing cybersecurity efforts, say those who have been involved with this type of soc.
The benefits of student cybersecurity participation
For students like him, Kircher says that getting involved with a SOC is an important opportunity to start establishing contacts in the field, in addition to learning practical skills. He adds that students who work in these centers also give back their universities.
“The beauty of our program is that we can eliminate the burden of our organizations that receive a lot of security alerts,” he says.
Corey J. Lee, a security cto in Microsoft, says you are always asked how to start in cybersecurity. “From my point of view, the best place to start is in one of these security operations centers.” He adds that this is because many of those who hire cybersecurity roles, including early career roles, require that applicants have extensive experience with different digital threats. “Working in a security operations center, a large number of areas of security domain, identity, email security, final point security, network safety, etc. is exposed,” etc. “
Participating in a student Soc can also help students meet the experience requirements of many jobs.
“Many early career opportunities expect cybersecurity professionals to have three to five years of experience,” says Lee. “What we are seeing is that if a student has been working on their student soci for three years, and perhaps starting in high school, or have done so throughout their career at the university, they are graduating with three or four years of experience in cybersecurity.”
Start a SOC supported by the student at his school
Developing a student involved in the student in his school can be related to the right roles in his cybersecurity scheme.
Ryan Irving, who manages the student socio at the University of Southern Florida, says that doing this implies finding the correct balance.
“We want students to expose events and alerts in the real world, and give them the opportunity to investigate and classify. But we want to limit the risk to the organization and for students,” he says. “So, what we do here is that we focus predominantly on the level one triage. Therefore, we will identify an alert of any given tool. We will investigate it, we will do ours.
While these types of measures are important, it is also essential to help students interested in cybersecurity to develop the skills they need while working in a SOC led by students. Lee points out that in his experience, often a passion for learning eclipses existing knowledge.
“The talent scarcity with which we are dealing at this time is not just a deficit in humans. It is also a deficit in people who are interested and willing to learn more and enter some of the emerging spaces,” he says. “So I can't emphasize it enough to take advantage of the curiosity of students is an opportunity to fill the gaps in security operation equipment.”
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