Unlocking Opportunities in Cyber Security

thank you very much cheers for coming on guys I'm really excited this is my very first talk today I'm gonna be talking to you like you said about unlocking opportunity in cybersecurity it's been said that opportunity is all around us especially in cybersecurity you know there's so many opportunities going on with all the things coming at gdpr you know there's so many jobs that need filling the gaps that need filling however there's a lot of people that they're letting those opportunities slip by every day and they're not taking up those opportunities so you know this talk is mainly aimed at students and people who are currently working in LASIK IT roles who are looking to

transition into cybersecurity and it's to try and teach you about how to get that opportunistic mindset now to set yourself well to land yourself the roles that you're looking for within cybersecurity it's no doubt that a lot of people are missing those opportunities by not researching not finding out what free resources are available and things like that and just a bit about myself my background my name is James Hickey I I am ex-raf six years in the area I would found out about something called the free degree scheme and I was like wait a minute I can go and do a free degree that sounds cool three years 27,000 pounds and you'll pay for it and

there's no commitment to go back in yeah I'll do that so I I'm back in University in a moment and I'm in my second year of a computer science degree I originally picked computer science specifically because I just wanted to be a developer but twelve months ago at the end of my first year I realized around this sort of time I went to a cybersecurity challenge event they held a event at the University of Birmingham is a fantastic event they had a CTF there lots of talks and I realized hey this is cool this is really awesome I'm excited by this I want to get into cybersecurity this is something I like I'm also at the moment as part of that

in a passion for cybersecurity and that real interest in penetration testing and challenges I'm currently with my friend over there Jackies having a little go with this camera and setting up so we called the Cyber League and what that is is it's a University CTF League to try and connect all the societies and to get them doing regular CTF events throughout the year online you know there's lots of face-to-face events but there's not a lot of actual University only academic MCT of events so that's something that I'm trying to do in my own time you'll notice it quite amusing picture there it does have a lot of revelant relevant because buzz like it is my hero you

might say that's a bit of an odd hero to have but there's the quote to infinity and beyond I've lived by that for quite a long time now specifically because to me that means that there's no limits on what you can achieve and what you can do that's the way I see it I see challenges therefore as nothing more than an opportunity for me to change and to grow and to gain experiences and to try new things and to expand myself and and to improve my circumstances essentially so like I said before and what I think everyone needs to do to get what they want and to do what they want is to get that opportunistic mindset and the first

part of the opportunistic mindset is curiosity I've got written down here opportunity desires a curious mind that's always asking deeper and more insightful questions so what we want to be thinking about with that is trying to find out deep into you know how things work taking things apart you've got to be curious you've got to there are lots of things that you can and for example there are some fantastic things you can go and visit and it's for your a student specifically or if you're ex-military immersive labs go and see them now please they are fantastic they have a platform where they have hundreds of labs it's free for students and ex-military at the moment they are they

do provide access to other people exclusively to test it and because they're going to rolling that out with it businesses it gives you up an opportunity to try out the skills and the tool sets to try them out and serve use them in a lab environment and to let you know so that you're learning about the mouth different types of malware how you can use all the different sorts of tools just gaining a better insight into how things within the industry work whether it's defensive you know in a sock an analyst kind of role or offensive in a pen testing red teaming role or on from that you know if you have an interest in pentesting hack the

box you absolutely fantastic site they're constantly rolling out new boxes for you to go and attack go and get into too it's a root great a bit of fun one thing I find that is so important for guys you've got to be curious you've got to be on Twitter and looking at all the blogs you've got to be seeing what are the latest trends what other follow all the really interesting guys here all the guys that are coming out with torts today when you get a chance get a list of their names out find out all their Twitter's follow them all see what they're doing what are they going to be talking about the next event what what's

going on what things are all these you know these innovators within the industry doing what are they doing follow them look at their box keep up to date with all with regards to this this this one has really unusual and actually found it out within the last three months I would probably say it books there's a resource called O'Reilly Safari it cost a fortune if you're not a student and know how to get it nice and sheet because around I think it is $300 a years to access but if you're a student you can go onto the ACMs Association of Computing Machinery it's an American computing society you can have a student membership for only $42 and that gives

you access to the entire digital versions of the entire O'Reilly library the entire no starch press library and the entire Packt publishing the library so if you're a student and you have an interesting gaining lots of knowledge those are all that the top books that everyone's reading if you're not a student you can still get professional membership within that there association for a hundred and ninety-nine dollars and that gives you full access to those the entire Safari online book library a fantastic resource I only found that three months ago and I've I paid my 42-pound and I've been dollar sorry and I've been reading as many books as I can to feed the curiosity and make sure I'm

learning and and understanding all these these methodologies and these techniques my next little thing is generosity there are so many good groups around if you've ever heard of many hats club or the Manchester gray hats I don't know why I left that logo there that is still the Hawks logo Boise's a Manchester gray hats up there get on their websites join them they have they both have discord groups they both chat about things all the time and when I see a generosity what I really mean is the ability to share back with other people if you are doing something really interesting share it let everyone know about it go on these these sites join these clubs join these groups and get

talking get talking about things talk about what you're doing share what what are they talking about okay you're doing something that's really interesting I actually I do this it's really similar as you want to talk about something we'll meet in the middle and do something together it's that kind of thing building links it's the fact that you come here is fantastic sharing the generosity of coming here and sharing your talks things like that like I say sharing on social media make sure you give give away DEFCON groups they're fantastic there's a I think there's three decent difficult groups that - I can think of the dc4 420 which is in London and DC one five one

at Leeds those of other fantastic groups that have get together really often they all the many hats Club is purely online and they did actually have a face-to-face get-together in Dublin this year they all get together really often they have events do things like that be generous share what you've got share what you know next you gotta be pissed you've gotta have some perseverance try harder to suck less within the opportunistic mindset you need to be someone that has the determination to keep persisting and keep persevering despite failure and not success in you know for example big one they always use the phrase try harder there are people on who taking on the OS CP labs when they getting stuck on some

ink don't keep going have the perseverance to keep going keep trying are you a student are you applying for jobs are you Fayette you know not getting through to the interviews don't worry just keep trying you're learning every time you're learning something new every single time you're learning the process keep trying these things and always seek help from your friends and colleagues if you don't know something persevere ask ask the questions go on social media ask a question someone will know confidence my confidence is getting up here today and talking to you about this kind of stuff for anyone here that's not applied for B sides before to do a talk to enter any CFP do it if you think you do some

interesting stuff just do it don't don't say oh I can't do that no I'm not I'm not good enough have the confidence to get up and do it try it the same goes with you think you're not good enough for a job advert you've seen I've not got the experience they're asking for five years I've got two what is what's the problem in trying what problem in having the confidence to go you know what I think I'm good enough I don't have the experience but I'm as good as someone who's might have had five years experience go for it try it make the phone calls you know you find someone you're really interested in if I

can find their phone for their number give them a call speak to them do you want a mentor call someone find someone you really interested in send them a message say can you mentor me have some confidence it gets you places it really does optimism very very similar to the last two what I've got here a little sense I'll read out opportunity desires an optimistic attitude that doesn't waver of course if things don't go expected it's the same again it's keeping being optimistic keep trying with those putting your CDs in if you're going for jobs keep trying if you're going through the labs be optimistic I can do this I will do this one day someone's going to

notice your optimism your confidence your perseverance your generosity your curiosity and you will land somewhere where you really want to be that's the opportunist it means that I want you guys to leave here with that's one in my little list is gratitude it's been thankful for people that have helped you out today I'd like to thank b-sides and I thought like thank you guys for coming here and listening to me I'd like to thank cyber challenge for actually introducing me it fit it's a cyber security in the first place either I'm James Hickey thank you very much have you got any quick questions