Seniors at the Anderson University Center for Cybersecurity put their knowledge to work in internships, where they experience what cybersecurity professionals do daily in a variety of different kinds of companies and organizations. They worked at cybersecurity departments in settings that included utility companies, financial institutions and manufacturing.
Performing a broad variety of cybersecurity-related tasks, Adelaine Wornom experienced what security analysis looks like at Strataseal in Charlotte.
“I was part of the first intern class for this company,” Wornom said. “I was able to shadow security analyst teams as they went through log events in cloud platforms such as Azure I also worked on editing instant response playbooks for clients and worked on processing various cyber contingency plans.”
Wornom says her internship helped her to see what kind of security analyst she wants to be when she graduates.
This past summer, Sean St. Clair interned at Scientific Research Corporation (SRC) in Augusta, Georgia.
“I was part of an internship class where they worked within an in-house developed range to simulate the penetration test,” said St. Clair, who was able to sharpen his skills in enumeration, exploitation and privilege escalation skills as well as have the chance to mentor some younger interns.
Jaimee Sanders was a cybersecurity governance intern at the headquarters for Milliken in Spartanburg. She plans to work with them part-time during the spring semester and will transition to full time work for the major company after she graduates.
Of her program at Anderson University, Sanders said, “All I have learned, I took into my internship. What I’ve been able to do here really helped build my confidence for what I did at Milliken.
Mittie Borden and Courtney Blum interned at Santee Cooper, a public energy utility based in Moncks Corner, South Carolina.
Borden worked as a security analyst in the CSOC (Cybersecurity Operations Center). She also gained experience in contingency planning, cyberthreat intelligence and vulnerability management.
“I used a lot of things I learned in the Linux class. My networking security course was very helpful in my internship and it put me ahead of other interns in our company, even though I was a freshman when I started,” Borden said.
Blum did analyst work related to email security and vulnerability management, learning more about penetration testing—areas thoroughly covered in her classes at Anderson.
She added, “I also did a 9 a.m. briefing every morning where I presented in front of the cybersecurity department anything cybersecurity related that happened the day before that had any relation to the company.”
Most exciting for both Borden and Blum was an offer of a full-time job with Santee Cooper.
Ryan Welch became inspired early on from his dad’s work with computers and how he enjoyed his job.
“I worked with a company called Ethox Chemicals,” Welch said of his internship. “I worked in the data management sector. When I was there last summer we had a new ERP system, which is a database system. We had to implement our old system to our new system, so I was in charge of trying to create a procedure of how to move all the data over and also routing the standard operation procedures for the new database.”
Meredith Frick, who transferred to Anderson University during her sophomore year, found her niche in Cybersecurity after exploring several other majors. She spent this past summer as an information security intern at United Community Bank.
“I’m actually learning a lot in my contingency class right now that I was able to do over the summer,” Frick said. “I helped the information security team. I assisted them in their governance, risk management and compliance areas. I also helped with the data protection monitoring and security monitoring and I also helped with the email firewall applications.”
Sofia Deambrosi grew up around technology. She took several programming classes and even built her own computer as a youngster.
“Originally I was thinking of getting a medical degree and becoming a doctor. Then I explored the program here at Anderson University and thought it sounded really interesting,” Deambrosi said. “I figured it’s going to be a few years shorter than being a doctor and sounded just as interesting and fulfilling, so I switched.”
Deambrosi was a cybersecurity consultant intern working under the assessment team of Elliott Davis in downtown Greenville.
“I did a few projects with other interns there as well as shadow a lot of my own team and then created a few templates for policy, suggestions for clients, as well as work with some technology there,” Deambrosi said.
Like Deambrosi and several other cybersecurity classmates, Seth Taylor has been into computers and all things STEM from a young age.
“In middle school and high school, I did a lot of engineering and computer science classes,” said Taylor, who was an IT intern at Anderson University over the summer.
“I worked for the IT department as well as the security team here. I worked under Curt Kappenman, who is our CSO (Chief Security Officer), and I did threat hunting and threat protection and I also did some forensics work.”
Some of the classes that really stood out for Taylor were in the areas of network security, threat intelligence, threat management and digital forensics.
An adventure of discovery ensued when Andrew Blakney’s high school lent him a computer. He played around with it, trying to figure out software workarounds as he was familiarizing himself with his device’s intricacies. He says his classes in Python, CIS and network security have helped him the most. Blakney spent his summer as an information security analyst intern at World Finance’s corporate offices in Greenville.
“One of my biggest jobs was running phishing campaigns or working on user access reviews to see which users have the right permissions,” Blakney said.
Gentry Watson spent his summer internship working on an IT and project management team at the People’s Bank in Anderson.
“I started a lot in help desk doing simple things like staging computers for new users,” Watson said. “I did some risk management and some business continuity planning.”
Watson feels his coursework at Anderson’s cybersecurity program has been extremely helpful.
“Last semester, before the internship, I took the Risk Management course. During that time, I think that helped me out the most because during that time we talked a lot about business continuity management and risk management. I did a lot of that over my internship, that benefited me the most.”
Josh Karpus teaches computer science classes to home schoolers.
“When I first started looking for colleges, I wasn’t really interested in any cybersecurity, but I like computers and didn’t really know what I wanted to do. “I decided to do cybersecurity and it was kind of going out on a limb—I’ve enjoyed it. Dr. Knapp’s great and Brandon Grech and Karry Elson—all of them are fantastic professors,” Karpus said.“The real thing that hooked me was the Capture the Flag competitions here.”
Please note—Anderson University students are national leaders in Capture the Flag Competitions such as the National Cyber League (NCL) Games, which offer students a variety of challenges to test their cybersecurity skills in areas that include identifying hackers, auditing vulnerable websites and recovering from ransomware attacks.
Karpus continued, “I teach basic level Python to group of home schoolers for a local hybrid Academy here in Anderson.”
“That’s a big deal because we need teachers,” says Dr. Kenneth Knapp, director of the Anderson University Center for Cybersecurity. “We’re encouraging some of our students to consider going into teaching, because there’s a need for cybersecurity teachers in high school and college as well as professionals in the industry. Josh is leading the way.”
The AU Center for Cybersecurity
The Anderson University Center for Cybersecurity trains students to meet the unique demands of today’s cybersecurity industry. The Center gives you the freedom to choose a degree track that focuses solely on cybersecurity or adds specializations in one of three areas: analytics, criminal justice, or mathematics. Details are available online.
Cybersecurity Awareness Month
Cybersecurity Awareness Month is an international initiative that highlights actions
everyone can take to stay safe online. Cybersecurity Awareness Month is supported by corporations, government agencies,
schools, tribes, non-profits and professionals dedicated to cybersecurity education and
protecting our communities.