Finally Here!
Hello all, welcome to my blog covering the final course in the Bellevue Cybersecurity Master's program. This has been quite a journey, starting back in the Winter of 2014. I am fully aware that four years is kind of excessive to complete 12 classes, but I went through at a pace that allowed me to enjoy life and accomplish other goals at the same time. My original goal was to complete my MS degree before retiring from the Air Force. Well, I hit that retirement button yesterday, requesting a retirement date of next year. So pending the results of this course (and the concurrent Risk Management course), mission accomplished!
A bit about me. I am 37 years old and currently residing in Anchorage, AK. I married my high school sweetheart 18 years ago, and we have three wonderful children. We love Alaska, and all of the amazing things that you can only do here. I have about a year left to enjoy it, before we retire and transition to civilian life in Colorado, my hometown. I love fishing, camping, golfing, skiing, and home brewing.
I will be glad to finish and pursue other cyber security achievements along the certification lines. I currently hold a CISSP, but I really want to get some more hands on experience. I would love to ultimately work as a penetration tester or in cyber response/incident handling. It is interesting watching the maturity of this ever expanding cyber security field of work. It is becoming relatively daunting trying to determine my next steps after moving on from the military, because of the wide range of specialists it appears the industry requires. You have to be very knowledgeable and have real experience in the specific niche you are trying to master. Over the next few months I will be deciding which one of these niches I will be pursuing next year as I transition from the service. Definitely an exciting and anxious time for me as we move onto our "Second life".
I have done IT for my entire adult life, but with the way the military segments its specialties I have minimal experience in doing the job I actually want, so I had to get educated on my own. Hence the degree and certifications. I enjoyed my time as a system admin, but I really want to make a difference in the cyber security field. It requires a different mindset. One that takes a big picture view of operations...determining where cyber effects can make an impact, and thinking outside the box on ways to defend against attack vectors which can change daily.
This current course seems phenomenal from the start, because we are using a bit of everything to understand how to employ tactics to achieve strategic security objectives. It takes many different moving parts, all which require some differing skillsets; risk management, threat identification, vulnerability scanning, mitigation tactics, and ultimately strategic security knowledge, or taking cyber security data and translating that into actionable business information to important decisions can be made. I look forward to progressing through this and adding to my skillsets.
A bit about me. I am 37 years old and currently residing in Anchorage, AK. I married my high school sweetheart 18 years ago, and we have three wonderful children. We love Alaska, and all of the amazing things that you can only do here. I have about a year left to enjoy it, before we retire and transition to civilian life in Colorado, my hometown. I love fishing, camping, golfing, skiing, and home brewing.
I will be glad to finish and pursue other cyber security achievements along the certification lines. I currently hold a CISSP, but I really want to get some more hands on experience. I would love to ultimately work as a penetration tester or in cyber response/incident handling. It is interesting watching the maturity of this ever expanding cyber security field of work. It is becoming relatively daunting trying to determine my next steps after moving on from the military, because of the wide range of specialists it appears the industry requires. You have to be very knowledgeable and have real experience in the specific niche you are trying to master. Over the next few months I will be deciding which one of these niches I will be pursuing next year as I transition from the service. Definitely an exciting and anxious time for me as we move onto our "Second life".
I have done IT for my entire adult life, but with the way the military segments its specialties I have minimal experience in doing the job I actually want, so I had to get educated on my own. Hence the degree and certifications. I enjoyed my time as a system admin, but I really want to make a difference in the cyber security field. It requires a different mindset. One that takes a big picture view of operations...determining where cyber effects can make an impact, and thinking outside the box on ways to defend against attack vectors which can change daily.
This current course seems phenomenal from the start, because we are using a bit of everything to understand how to employ tactics to achieve strategic security objectives. It takes many different moving parts, all which require some differing skillsets; risk management, threat identification, vulnerability scanning, mitigation tactics, and ultimately strategic security knowledge, or taking cyber security data and translating that into actionable business information to important decisions can be made. I look forward to progressing through this and adding to my skillsets.
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