What’s it like to be a Cybersecurity Intern at IBM Consulting
whoami
Currently Pursuing a Master of Science in Cybersecurity and Working hard to keep myself up to date with changes in the cyber world. With academics and Industrial certifications, I Acquired experience in Penetration Testing, Vulnerability Assessment, and Cryptography. It was start of March when I officially received my offer letter from IBM to join their Enterprise Technology and Business unit to work in the office of the Chief Information Security Officer, Koos Lodejiwx.
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This position of Cybersecurity Software Engineer Intern supports the IBM Enterprise & Technology Security organization. Interns work alongside Cybersecurity and Software Development professionals to understand and support the mitigation of vulnerabilities identified in a variety of IBM assets.
Interns will work around others familiar with Data Science to craft tools that enable the business to analyze incoming vulnerability information and act with greater efficiency and assist with several tasks including how to identify crown jewel assets, methods to protect them, and tests to ensure they are well protected.
As an intern, I worked directly toward President Biden’s Executive order on America’s supply chain security. In a software-driven world running on container instances, most of the exploits are conducted through software vulnerabilities. As a result, my role was to Improvise the Security posture for IBM products and open-source software by creating a unified risk profile through data aggregation and normalization.
Project Idea 💭 & Business Outcome📋
Kicking off the IBM summer internship by learning about the company’s products and long-term goals, mergers, and acquisitions. A high-level overview of the project’s objectives, business impacts, and potential benefits.
Learning best Security Practices, Privacy, and Compliance lessons through modules and seminars for the first few weeks.
Agile work methodology ⛳
Developed an Agile work methodology with Daily standups along with the Team lead & Technical mentors discussing what the team accomplished yesterday, what the team will be on working on today, and if there are any team blockers.
Enterprise Design Thinking 🤔& Corporate Culture 🕶
More Visual representation and Less text — Way of putting up things that can deliver the project output with the help of interactive whiteboard, use of Murals, and brainstorming sessions to draw out & discussing the high-level overview of the project flow. Learned about IBM’s corporate culture and how everyone here is super friendly and always willing to help regardless of what position they hold.
Technical Learning 👨🏻💻
Learned about Bash scripting for automating repetitive tasks. Normalizing data using Python scripts to make it uniform for risk assessment and summarizing it to fit into one risk profile. Created a docker image and learned about the vulnerability tools through implementation. The best part was learning about the awesome X-Force team and how they manage Penetration Testing, Threat Detection, and Incident Response at the Enterprise level.
IBM Bee🐝Innovative Hackathon Challenge 🏆
How can technology improve sustainable production, consumption, and management of resources, reduce pollution creation, and protect biodiversity to create a greener future? I and my team (Global Diverse team of 6 members) Competed in IBM’s BEE Innovative Hackathon challenge to work on a Waste recycling project and built an application that is a one-stop shop for Vendors/Sellers to buy and sell recyclable or waste products contributing to greener future.
Project Showcases with executives 🤝
Weekly/Bi-weekly Scrum meetings and Showcases with CISO (Chief Information Security Officer), VPs (Vice President), Senior VP, Director, Manager, and Team lead discussing the project progress and business outcomes the project provides.
Networking and Bonding 🍕🍺
We had the opportunity to have a tech-filled geek conversation with IBM CISO Koos Lodejiwx, IBM Enterprise Technology and Security Vice President, Bill Tworek, IBM Enterprise Technology and Security Director, Nicole O’Connor, and IBM Supply Chain Security Director, Chris Desforges, we had the chance to have lunch with executives and network with them for stronger relationships.
A special thanks goes out to Lory Larma-Hopper for mentoring us throughout the internship and without whom the trip to Carowinds would not have been possible.
