By Virgil Giles and Greg Moore
This summer, OmniSOC began its inaugural eight-week summer internship program, hosting 10 students from IU, Rutgers University, and the University of Nebraska system.
The internship program started on the Bloomington campus, where students spent four weeks becoming acquainted with operations at all levels. They finished out the experience at their home institutions, working with their local IT security professionals for the remaining four weeks.
For Casandra Begin, a recent Rutgers University graduate, the experience changed her future.
“Working with OmniSOC this summer has given me a new outlook on what direction I want to take my career,” she said. “Having this hands-on experience with cybersecurity gave me the understanding of how important it really is to protect the industry or company I decide to work in, so this internship has certainly given me an edge.”
Trenton Chramosta, a junior majoring in computer science and minoring in mathematics at the University of Nebraska Kearney, said the best part has been developing new skills.
“I applied for this internship because I wanted to learn and experience more aspects of cybersecurity, and hopefully incorporate some of what I learned into my school’s Cybersecurity Team labs and competition strategies,” he said. “This internship will help my future career by allowing me to connect with others who strive to improve the security world.”
These sentiments are music to Tom Davis’s ears. As OmniSOC founding executive director and chief information security officer, Davis led the development of the internship program, working in close partnership with OmniSOC’s member security teams.
Davis is quick to point out that creating the internship program was a UITS team effort, with the Global Research Network Operations Center’s Alice Jackson serving as logistics project manager and GlobalNOC’s Josh Edwards as its content project manager. Former UITS HR Officer Deb Allmayer—initial author of the internship proposal prior to retirement—volunteered her time to make the program a success. Notably, the OmniSOC team put in considerable work developing the content and working alongside the interns.
“We are very excited to launch our inaugural OmniSOC learning and working internship program this summer,” Davis said. “The goal is threefold: to enhance employability, improve academic outcomes, and crystalize career choices for our students. We believe these types of opportunities are critical for training our students for successful cybersecurity careers.”
“Through sharing threat intelligence, higher education institutions collectively benefit from knowing what actions to take and how other trusted partners are affected,” says Scott Borbely, manager of security operations in the Rutgers Office of Information Technology. “The pooling of technology resources provides greater efficiency and leverage overall.”
“At Rutgers, we feel exposing young talent to the depths of cybersecurity efforts through this internship program is paramount for the future,” says Borbely. “Universities, especially Rutgers, are a natural place where the security leaders of tomorrow can play a valuable role today.”
Launched in 2018, OmniSOC is a first-of-its-kind shared cybersecurity operations center for higher education. Founding partners are Northwestern University, Purdue University, Rutgers University, the University of Nebraska—Lincoln, and Indiana University. With just over a year of service in operation, OmniSOC has become an award-winning leader and pioneer in cybersecurity operations, actively engaging and supporting IU’s mission by educating and providing hands-on experience to tomorrow’s workforce.
While in Bloomington, the interns had a packed schedule. They attended presentations and seminars from technical experts, vendors, and IU faculty members, while also working as a cohort and in small groups on case studies and other learning activities.
One experience included hearing from Neil Desai, a solutions architect with vendor Elastic. He came to Bloomington to share his career experiences and knowledge via his talk, “Tales from infosec: 23 years of experience in less than two hours.” (Interested? Watch his recorded presentation.)
During the second phase of the summer learning program, the interns returned to their home campus to continue OmniSOC-related projects under the guidance of one of their university experts. Opportunities continued for learning and networking remotely, including giving a final presentation derived from project assignments.
“The best part of the experience has been having such great access to so many experts in the field,” said Eric Guilla-Seiffert, an IU sophomore. “Getting to hear presentations from outstanding cybersecurity professionals and being able to pick their brains and learn from them is immensely valuable and something you can only get from a program such as this one.”
For Dinesh Budhathoki, a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the internship was helpful both academically and professionally.
“We got to work on projects that involved a wide variety of resources, which gave us a real insight into what it’s like to work in the cybersecurity field,” she said. “The impact has been huge. After questioning whether I wanted to go into cybersecurity, this internship made me realize that I want to be fully immersed in this field.”
University of Nebraska Executive Director and Chief Information Security Officer Matt Morton said, “The OmniSOC internship program is a great opportunity for our students to learn from industry experts, as well as from our Big Ten peers, and bring their new knowledge back to our campuses. It has been a pleasure to work with Dinesh and Trenton and see them improve their cybersecurity skills.”
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