Cybereason is pleased to announce that it has joined with the MassCyberCenter at the MassTech Collaborative and other Massachusetts companies to mentor college students from 14 schools across the state. Cybereason has three on-staff mentors, including: Sam Curry, Chief Security Officer, Lodrina Cherne, Principal Security Advocate and Maggie MacAlpine, Security Strategist.
“There is a massive skills gap in the cybersecurity industry and we should do all we can to bridge it and to pay forward what we all received in our careers. No one advances in isolation and it is important to share, talk to new people and to listen,” said Curry.
“As mentors we learn as much as the mentees do and diving into conversations about the foundational principles of our discipline is providing mentees with the building blocks needed to forge their own path in this industry.”
Curry is a nationally renowned cybersecurity expert with more than 25 years of experience and is a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute. Cherne has more than 15 years of cybersecurity experience and is also a certified instructor with the SANS Institute. MacAlpine has more than 10 years of cybersecurity experience and is one of the co-founders of the DEFCON Voting Machine Hacking Village.
The MassCyberCenter was launched in September 2017 with a vision to enhance opportunities for the Massachusetts cybersecurity ecosystem to compete as the national cybersecurity leader while strengthening the resiliency of the Commonwealth’s public and private communities. Learn more at www.masscybercenter.org.
“The private sector, government, and academia all have important roles to play in growing and diversifying the cybersecurity workforce, which is why I am happy to see the involvement of these partners in the Cybersecurity Mentorship Program,” said Stephanie Helm, Director of the MassCyberCenter at the MassTech Collaborative.
As mentors, Curry, Cherne and MacAlpine will meet regularly with their mentees to discuss cybersecurity careers. During the program, students will build, break, secure, and administer a virtual machine; evaluate a cybersecurity policy or procedure for a business; draft a policy recommendation for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; create or evaluate a cyber incident response plan, and develop a cyber education and awareness product.
“I believe that participating in our local communities is one of the best ways to strengthen them. To grow our local cybersecurity community, we need to encourage our future security leaders and guide them through real-world problems and that is exactly what MassCyberCenter is doing,” said Cherne.
As part of Cherne’s mentorship engagement, she has organized a panel for the student mentees for Thursday, April 22 with digital forensics and incident response experts who will provide an overview of this career path. Mentors from both the public and private sector will speak.
“The cybersecurity industry is facing shortages of personnel even as cyber threats multiply exponentially each year. With MassTech, I hope to be able to give back to the community and to impact both insight and opportunities to the next generation of professionals,” said MacAlpine.
Cybereason is dedicated to teaming with defenders to end cyber attacks from endpoints to the enterprise to everywhere. Talk to a Cybereason Defender to learn more about our innovative solutions, or schedule a demo today to learn how your organization can benefit from an operation-centric approach to security.