A group of former students, current students, educators and seasoned infosec professionals discuss how to bridge the educational gaps whether starting out in infosec or pivoting into a new infosec specialization. We will touch on resources that current students can leverage, the transition into working in infosec, and ways that the infosec industry can help foster new practitioners. Additionally, we will shortly explain the paths we took and how we dealt with the obstacles we faced. We then evaluate these problems to find room for improvement in the industry and give our perspective on what either side could do to make the transition more seamless.
Forgotten serves as President of Unallocated Space, Director of BSidesCharm, Lead for TOOOL Maryland, Head of Security for BSidesDC and a litany of other things. Forgotten is dedicated to learning and improvement and has focuses in Network Security Monitoring, Education/Training, Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Capture-the-Flag Challenges (CTFs).
Kat Sweet is in her final semester of studying network security at Madison Area Technical College. When she’s not hacking for grades (or lulz), she feeds herself (and her brain) by blue teaming for her school, writing, and teaching at her friendly neighborhood hackerspace. She got her speaking start in the BSidesLV Proving Ground, where she returned last year as a presentation mentor. She currently serves as the CFP co-chair for CircleCityCon, as well as a founding board member of TiaraCon. Her speaking credits include BSidesLV, CircleCityCon, CypherCon, SkyTalks, and the DEF CON Wireless Village. Always accumulating way too many hobbies, she enjoys long walks on the beach, bursting into song, and picking unsuspecting locks.
Nischit Vaidya is the President/CEO and founder of Argotis, Inc. a Cybersecurity Consulting and Training firm providing services to the federal government and commercial organizations. He started his career in 1998 working as a desktop support technician moving his way up to starting his own company in 2013. He holds his A.A in from Howard Community College in General Studies, B.Sc from UMUC in Information Assurance, and M.Sc from Capitol Technology University in Information Assurance. Along with running his own company working billable hours as an Information Security Engineer, he’s also been teaching cybersecurity courses at colleges and universities around Maryland; presently for UMUC and online for the University of California Irvine. He’s worked for companies such as SAIC, ManTech, and small companies throughout his nineteen-year career. He’s traveled all over the world supporting government customers in the Intelligence Community, DISA, and Department of Defense.
Caitlyn graduated from Towson University in the spring of 2015 with a Bahelors in Computer Science and now works for the Detection Response Team at Cisco Talos where she specializes in exploit kit research and detection. This will be her first time speaking at a conference until later this spring when she gives her first official talk at BsidesCharm!