News

Our Intern Spotlight series highlights the experiences of interns at TDi. Today we focus on our graphic design internship. If you want to read previous entries in our Intern Spotlight series, you can see our other posts below:

Intern Spotlight with Hector, our UI and UX Intern
Intern Spotlight with Jonathan, our Development Intern
Intern Spotlight with Carter, our DevOps Intern

Meet Julia, our Graphic Design Intern

Intern Spotlight

If you’ve read our blogs, then you’re already familiar with our graphic design intern Julia’s work – she creates the images for them. She also develops the images for our social media, emails and more. Julia has done art most of her life. When she was younger, she made drawings and paintings and even started selling her pieces in sixth grade. She has a passion for golf as well. In high school she played golf on the varsity team and wanted to seriously pursue it until she met her art mentor from Poland.

As she worked with her mentor, preparing her portfolio to study in a five-year art program in Poland, the pandemic occurred. This put her plans on hold, and she turned her sights toward graphic design. It was a new challenge for her and a new area of art that she wanted to try.

This new pursuit guided her to a graphic design internship with TDi. She shares her experiences with us below.

What drew you to graphic design?

My comfortable art forms, like drawing and painting, don’t have a lot of job opportunities. I never completely decided what I wanted to do with art. So, I was really open to whatever got thrown my way. I had taken graphic design classes in high school and this last year in college, and I’ve done a few small jobs with graphic design and I really enjoyed it.

I figured, since I’m not going to Poland, and I wasn’t decided on what I wanted to do, graphic design seemed to have a good balance of what I liked and what I was capable of.

Now that you’re doing graphic design, are you enjoying it?

Yes, I am! My whole artistic career, I’ve always been really open to trying new things with my art. If you look at all the pieces I’ve done, there’s not a consistent style of anything. I’ve really enjoyed learning about this because it’s very practical and it’s everywhere.

It’s fun for me to learn as I go, learning all of the new parts of graphic design and digital art. Since I am more, I like to call it an “organic artist,” I use my hands, it’s fun to see a different side of it.

What do you think about cybersecurity now that you’re working in it?

I really did not know a whole lot about it, but as I’m redesigning documents and reading the content on it, going through the website, it’s a lot more interesting than I thought it was. I do art, not software, and understanding ConsoleWorks and everything that it does is pretty interesting to me. It definitely surprised me. I didn’t even know what ransomware was and now I’m realizing how prevalent it is.

What have you been working on?

I’ve been doing these intern sketches and graphics for the blog posts and emails that go out. I’m also working on redesigning case studies. I’m transferring information between two of our databases as well. So, I’m also learning about more software stuff through reading all of that.

What’s the most challenging part of your graphic design internship?

The most challenging thing is probably going out of my comfort zone with what I design. A lot of the things I see that need to be designed or re-designed, I have to tell myself to stop following what is already there. I don’t want to restrict myself. I want to push past what I know to create something better.

I’ve always worked with myself. I’ve always sold my own art; I do what I think looks good. The challenge working with a bunch of other people is seeing what they want and what they think looks good and I really like getting the feedback. The challenge is changing my ideas to fit a company’s standards rather than what I would do for myself in a commission piece.

Has your internship experience helped you achieve your career goals?

I feel like this is a really good baseline for what I want to do. This is a good starting point for me and a good introduction to graphic design. I’m taking more graphic design classes next semester and that’ll be my focus as an art major. It’s helping guide me on the right path and get an early start in my college experience.

What’s your favorite part about the graphic design internship?

I like how much freedom I have. Art already is very open to interpretation. I like being able to put something together and bounce my ideas off the team. I like working with you guys because I’m not used to that. I can get more feedback. It’s fun.

What would you tell a student interested in a cybersecurity internship at TDi?

The idea of having an internship always scared me. A lot of them are unpaid and it seems like you’re doing all this work, but I really like it. This company is really fun and I really like the people in it. So just getting yourself out there and getting over that hump, putting yourself out there and applying to internships is a lot better than you think it is.

It’s pretty fun! It’s fun learning all the new things and being in a more professional environment. It prepares you.

Keep Watch for More Internship Spotlights

Our Intern Spotlight is a series of posts throughout the summer highlighting the experiences of TDi’s cybersecurity interns as they develop their skills to be the next defenders of IT and OT operations. To learn more about TDi’s internship program, you can read our cybersecurity internship overview here.

Stay tuned to our updates page for the latest IT/OT cybersecurity posts and more Intern Spotlights.

Our on-going Intern Spotlight series, which highlights the experiences of interns at TDi, continues today with our DevOps cybersecurity intern spotlight. You can read about the experiences of other interns at TDi in our:

Intern Spotlight with Hector, our UI and UX Intern
Intern Spotlight with Jonathan, our Development Intern

Meet Carter, our DevOps Cybersecurity Intern

Carter is a DevOps intern here at TDi. His father got him into coding at an early age. While in middle school, he even developed two apps. One app, called “Geometry Helper,” had you put in values you knew about a shape and the app gave you the information that you didn’t know about the shape. His other creation was based on the gym game “Four Corners.”

In high school he began thinking about where to apply his skillset, initially considering game design. He didn’t think he would be able to do as much as he wanted in this field though, so he started looking at other areas to apply his skills.

In 10^th grade, after he applied to an early college program for cybersecurity at his local community college, he found his new fit. Shortly after, he learned about TDi and started his DevOps cybersecurity internship in 2018.

DevOps Cybersecurity Intern Spotlight    

You wanted to get into game design in the beginning. Now you’re in college, do you know what you want to do when you graduate?

Yea, I want to keep doing cybersecurity and go further into that field. As I’ve learned more about it, it has interested me more than the game design stuff. That’s more like a hobby for me now.

What grabbed you about cybersecurity and made you decide to focus on it?

Just the mental image really, of having a computer and everything being open and available. In one of my cybersecurity classes, we did a capture the flag game where you break into a system and access certain stuff and that’s just so cool.

Each team has a VM with certain files and there are tasks you can accomplish that give you hints of what you’re supposed to do and where you’re supposed to progress. Eventually, you find a specific file or access the machine and get something from it.

Has your DevOps cybersecurity internship experience helped you achieve your career goals?

In the beginning, it helped a lot because it gave me JavaScript experience and gave me a lot of opportunities to automate things, which has been helpful in my college classes and for stuff I’ve done at the internship. Especially the DevOps project I’m working on right now.

We go over a lot of cybersecurity benchmarks and baselines and recommendations. Automating those recommendations on devices has been useful because I can see that applying to the cybersecurity field. If you want to secure a device, you can go through these recommendations and you’ll be more secure. Working with that, and especially all the different types of coding languages and working with teams has been helpful.

Is working in cybersecurity what you thought it would be or did something surprise you?

It’s a lot more working with standards than I originally assumed it was. When I first went into cybersecurity, it’s sort of the vision of the movie hacker just clicking away at a terminal screen. But then most of it, as I’ve seen at the internship while working with these security benchmarks, is that it’s a lot more working with people and creating the best policies to deal with a threat before it happens instead of reacting as it happens.

What about working in software development, did something surprise you there?

I didn’t expect JavaScript to have so many applications. Normally I think of it as just working with HTML for website stuff. But working with ConsoleWorks, I’ve found a lot more uses for JavaScript.

What have you been working on?

When I first started, I was working on automating and proofreading a lot of the help pages associated with ConsoleWorks. I was given a lot of HTML files and went through seeing if everything worked. If it didn’t, I would fix it. Later, I was creating those files and working on ways to do those faster.

I also worked on a DevOps project that is similar and that automates the creation of ConsoleWorks scripts. Now, I’m working on the CIS baselines and some projects there. I’ve had a lot of small-scale projects in between, but those are the big ones.

What’s the most challenging part of your DevOps cybersecurity internship?

The hardest thing is that I’m working with a lot of systems where you can’t just Google what error code you’re running into, because it’s not something that’s out in the public. I do a lot of my work sort of on my own with trial cases and then see where it breaks. If something in the script breaks, I have to go out and find the person who created that library, and work with them to figure out what the problem is.

Have you enjoyed working with everyone at TDi?

It’s been really fun. Everyone contributes a lot, which has been better than my classes! Everyone I have worked with has been really nice and helped me a lot.

What is your favorite thing about working at TDi?

Besides the people being nice, it’s cool that as an intern I can work when I have the time. When I’m in school, I can work after for as long as I need to get the project done. And because I live in Maryland, I’m far away, so I can do it remote. It’s really accessible to get the work done. It’s really nice.

What would you tell a student interested in a cybersecurity internship at TDi?

That they should apply if they have the chance. It’s a cool company with cool people. It will help a lot with your job, working with a team and programming languages.

I really like how in the internship program, they say “hey, work with this person on the project,” and then you’re really at your own pace where you can go at it and if you run into trouble, you can ask a question. There’s really no micromanagement. If you know how to do something, you can go in and do it. But if I need help learning something, there’s always someone there that I can ask.

Keep Watch for More Internship Spotlights

Our Intern Spotlight is a series of posts throughout the summer highlighting the experiences of TDi’s cybersecurity interns as they develop their skills to be the next defenders of IT and OT operations. To learn more about TDi’s internship program, you can read our cybersecurity internship overview here.

Stay tuned to our updates page for the latest IT/OT cybersecurity posts and more Intern Spotlights.

This week, we are reminded again how critical it is that you are taking steps to not only protect your network, but also taking steps to strengthen your supply chain. We’ve seen the aftermath of supply chain ransomware attacks already from breaches like SolarWinds or Texas’ 2019 attack.

On July 2, Kaseya was the victim of a supply chain ransomware attack. It’s perhaps the largest ransomware breach yet. The attack exploited a vulnerability in Kaseya’s software, affecting up to 70 of its customers and compromising up to 1,500 businesses in total.

We’ve been stressing this year how important supply chain security is and how seriously we take it. We see many people discussing the importance of making your network secure, but it is done so in a vacuum of sorts.

How a Supply Chain Ransomware Attack Works

Those discussions are often free of the consideration for what your partners might be doing in the equation. This is a critical misstep in the conversation. Supply chain ransomware attacks are capable of infecting hundreds at once, or in this week’s case, up to 1,500.

The attack started with Kaseya, and then infected its customers that are managed services providers (MSP), which then infected the networks of the customers to those MSP’s.

These attacks are so effective because of the inherent trust many companies give to certain users or businesses. We’ve also discussed this year why it’s important to implement Zero Trust for your business. This is exactly why.

It seems Kaseya made it easier for the attackers by asking customers not to monitor its on-premise “working” folders for malware. Bereft of critical monitoring and situational awareness, combined with the inherent trust given, you have a recipe for an explosive, international supply chain ransomware attack.

Cybersecurity Best Practices in 2021

We talked in last week’s ransomware post about how these attacks are often successful due to a lack of good cybersecurity hygiene. Many affected companies didn’t have cybersecurity best practices in place or were using outdated methods to protect their selves.

As we see the continued rise of ransomware attacks, it’s important that companies are doing their best to make sure they’re keeping the basics covered and their hygiene in peak condition.

The recent Colonial Pipeline attack happened after a compromised password allowed access to a VPN without multifactor authentication. Many other attacks happened through updates not being applied to network devices which opened vulnerabilities that allowed a bad actor into the network. Or others from companies that gave inherent trust to users within its network.

To protect yourself from the continued increases in attacks, you need a cybersecurity platform that will protect you from the weaknesses these attackers target and a supply chain that you build with confidence. Knowing that each business is doing its best to mitigate risk not only to itself, but to the greater supply chains in which it comprises, is critical moving forward.

These considerations mean a security approach with the following features:

• Role-based access to limit what a user can do and even what parts of the network he is aware of, further limiting capabilities with command-by-command grants for absolute control.
• Password management and multifactor authentication
• Configuration monitoring that automatically checks end point configurations to ensure your devices are not being accessed and changed against your will.
• Automated patch analyses to reduce security gaps and ensure you are not vulnerable to known security exploits.
• Logging and situational awareness so you know exactly what is happening on your network and how it is happening.
• Supply chain security diligence from those you include in your supply chain. We did the SOC for Supply Chain examination for this very reason. We take the security of your supply chain very seriously.
• Zero Trust security practices that never trust and always verify access to your network. Many breaches happen due to the castle and moat architecture and assumptions that once a person has been verified, they can be trusted.

With these as your guiding security principles in this new environment of increasing attacks of opportunity, you will significantly reduce your risk from these types of supply chain ransomware attacks.

ConsoleWorks is a cybersecurity operations platform that handles all these security needs for you and comes from a team that understands the criticality of a being a secure partner in your supply chain.

To see how ConsoleWorks protects you in action, schedule a demo or talk to us here about protecting your network today.

Our Intern Spotlight is a series of posts throughout the summer highlighting the experiences of TDi’s cybersecurity interns as they develop their skills to be the next defenders of IT and OT operations. If you missed our first Intern Spotlight with Hector, our UI and UX intern, you can read it here.

To learn more about TDi’s internship program and how we are growing the next set of IT and OT security professionals, you can read our cybersecurity internship overview here.

Meet Jonathan, our Development Cybersecurity Intern

Jonathan is a computer science major and our intern on the development team. He has always enjoyed technology, especially computers and software. When he took his first computer science class in high school, he found himself drawn to the problem solving and logical aspects of coding.

He continued this path into college, picking up his initial internship with TDi during his first summer there. He wanted to learn more about the field of cybersecurity and software development, like how developing and delivering software really worked outside of the classroom.

Now a college senior, he’s also a veteran intern at TDi. Jonathan has interned with us during his summers and winters since 2019 and is preparing to enter the professional world. Below, we ask Jonathan about his experiences during the cybersecurity internship.

Intern Spotlight

What do you want to do when you graduate?

I think I like the software development path. I like working to solve problems and fixing them using logic and thinking, that sort of thing. That’s a pretty big branch in the field on its own, but if I could continue here at TDi, I would love that.

So, software development is the big answer. The smaller answer after that, I’m not quite so sure.

Has your cybersecurity internship experience helped you achieve your career goals?

Yea absolutely. My first month of my first summer, I learned just as much, if not more, about programming and coding than in school. Professional coding more specifically, instead of just textbook problems and things of that nature, which has been a really great experience.

Being able to work for 40 hours a week for 10 to 12 weeks of summer has really helped me learn exponentially faster than you do in the classroom. Being able to work with a team of people that have been in the industry for a long time, and that have a lot of experience that can guide me and tell me where to look and how to fix problems, has really helped my general problem-solving skills. That’s been really great to help me get set.

Initially going into the internship, I wasn’t 100 percent sure that I was going to be good enough to work in the industry or be good enough to do an engineering job or anything like that. This has really made me confident in my decision that this is something that I would want to do.

Is working in cybersecurity what you thought it would be or did something surprise you?

I was definitely surprised when I started working in cybersecurity. I didn’t have any knowledge of what professional cybersecurity looked like. I just had generic movie ideas of hackers and coding and trying to fight against people trying to come into your network.

But the real surprise for me came in developing a software to prevent that. I had never considered that a software like ConsoleWorks would be an effective cybersecurity measure because I had never been exposed to that kind of thing before.

What about working in software development, did something surprise you there?

I didn’t know what to expect coming in. I was expecting that it would be pretty hard to do. Generally, a lot of working with ConsoleWorks has been something I can pick up and learn faster than I thought I would be able to.

So that has been surprising for me. I didn’t think I would be useful to the company or the engineering department in the way that I have been – the projects I’ve been able to work on, the things I’ve been able to do.

What have you been working on?

Last summer, my biggest project was on a baseline script that monitored everything that happened in a section of time since the baseline’s previous run. It monitored everything that happened in ConsoleWorks. If you run this baseline on Tuesday and on Wednesday someone logs in, accesses consoles, adds two devices and deletes two others, they log out, and the next day you run the baseline again, everything is monitored there.

You can see the changes between the previous run and the current run. Which was really good for a customer to see, to give them an easier roadmap of what had been happening in a day, a week, or a month in ConsoleWorks or if anything major had changed.

The summer before that, I worked with engineering and devops on a Nozomi integration. I was working on writing scripts that would help capture data and integrate with ConsoleWorks, putting all of that inside of a dashboard. Those have been my biggest projects.

The first summer I got here was a lot of developing work. Learning about ConsoleWorks, what consoles are, how it relates to the software and everything that is tracked and monitored.

Since then, a lot of my work has been with baselines, like writing baselines and writing the example system for baselines. It was my job to familiarize myself with them and I wrote a small paper about effective ways to utilize baselines.

What’s the most challenging part of your cybersecurity internship?

One of the most challenging things has been adjusting from the instructor/teacher style of classes, to teaching myself and being self-reliant with a lot of things. That’s not to say I haven’t had help along the way, all of the team is there and helping me with any questions I have.

But when I encounter a problem or I have a question, my first thought that I try to start with is “how can I fix this myself? Is there a solution I can find or something I can read that will help me fix this problem?” It’s been rewarding, because as I’ve gotten better, it’s made me more productive and less reliant on other people.

While it’s definitely been a challenge to learn at a different level and develop at a different level doing different types of work compared to textbook problems, it’s been equally rewarding.

What is your favorite thing about working at TDi?

Working in teams and being able to accomplish things bigger than what I would be able to do myself. And the general satisfaction and pride that you get from working on a project and putting a lot of time and effort into it, and then pushing that project out to customers who will use it and find it helpful for their business. It’s a really rewarding feeling.

That’s not something you quite get in the education system. It’s similar to getting a good grade or feedback, but people are paying for what I’m making, so they expect something quality and being able to provide that is a good thing.

What would you tell a student interested in an internship at TDi?

I would say just try not to be intimidated. Come in with coachability and stay openminded to learning and to taking challenges head on. Try to accomplish things that you never have before. At times it can seem difficult, but it’s equally rewarding in that aspect.

If you keep working at it and just keep chipping away, even if it means some days you don’t get much done, or feel like you wasted your time or day, if you come back and you make a breakthrough then you’ll forget about what happened and it’ll be worth it.

It’s a great company with a lot of great people. The engineering team, which I’ve been working with the most, has been extremely helpful in helping me learn and aren’t agitated when I ask 10 or 20 questions a day. It’s been a great experience.

Keep Watch for More Internship Spotlights

We have more on the way! Stay tuned to our updates page for the latest on our internship spotlights and other updates for cybersecurity in IT and OT operations.

To learn more about TDi’s internship program and how we are growing this country’s next set of IT and OT defenders, you can also read our cybersecurity internship overview here.

This summer we’re highlighting experiences from our cybersecurity internship. Our interns immerse in the world of cybersecurity for IT and OT operations and become part of the team at TDi. They contribute to projects and learn the soft and hard skills that help them succeed professionally.

If you missed it, you can read our cybersecurity internship program overview here to see our approach to cultivating the next group of leaders to protect  IT and OT operations.

Meet Hector, our Cybersecurity Intern for UI and UX Design

For this intern spotlight we sat down with Hector to learn about his experiences at TDi working on user experience design and how his passion for all things graphic design landed him a spot in this summer’s cybersecurity internship program.

Hector initially found his love for graphic design by creating thumbnails for his YouTube videos. From there he pursued design courses in high school to learn more and build upon the fundamentals of graphic design.

Eventually he entered graphic design competitions, getting first in the DFW region, and even going all the way to the state championship, taking third place.

His focus in college is on UI and UX design and creating mobile app interfaces. We asked Hector some questions about his experience during the internship and his advice to other students who are considering an internship.

Intern Spotlight

What do you want to do when you graduate?

That’s definitely something I have been thinking about a lot recently, because I’m approaching my senior year. Ideally, I would want to do something very similar to what I’m doing at TDi, like UI development and UI design.

How has your experience in the cybersecurity internship at TDi helped you on your career track?

It definitely skyrocketed my progress toward wanting to do UI! Prior to this, my choices have been either general graphic design or working as a social media manager. With my Cybersecurity Internship here, I’ve learned so much about the process of designing user flows, wireframing and creating mockups at a much higher level.

I’m able to put a lot of thought into the things that I’m doing, especially since we’re working in advance for what we need to push out, so I’m not thinking “okay let’s just get something done.” I’m thinking a lot more about the quality of the product.

And in general, working with the engineering and devops teams has been super informative to understanding their thought process, and understanding the limitations of programming, so I’m not designing something extremely overboard. It’s nice to sit down and understand where the limitations are and where my priorities should be.

What have you learned about cybersecurity that surprised you?

I’ve learned a lot and there’s still so much I’m learning every day. Just working on the platform itself, working on all the dashboards [for ConsoleWorks] and realizing just how many devices and events there could potentially be.

There are things our team must consider for the ConsoleWorks user – if they’re a beginner or light user of ConsoleWorks, or a heavy user that has multiple devices and dozens of events for each of those devices. Regardless of the situation, it’s important that ConsoleWorks is user friendly and that all the performance and control is there at both levels.

Cybersecurity is definitely a lot more intricate than I originally thought and it’s something I want to learn more about. I think that being in this position, I’m definitely learning every single day, which is exactly what I want to do.

What have you been working on?

I have been extensively working on designing both from the frontend, to creating documentation and going over other projects too.

The main priority has been on our dashboards. Creating new iconography for the widgets and giving it a facelift. We’re heavily considering the feedback from our customers about how they use the platform and how they ideally want to use the platform. I’m trying to design the platform around their wants and uses to fulfill their objectives when using ConsoleWorks.

What’s the most challenging part of your internship?

The most challenging so far has been that I’m so accustomed to that “get in and get out” type workflow from previous jobs. This is a lot more “take your time, make sure the product is good” so we get things in there without any issues.

I get to make my work professional and high quality before we’re pushing it out to users. Because we have huge companies using our product, we want to make sure that the platform is top quality.

What has been your favorite thing about the internship?

My favorite thing has been presenting my proposals or documentation and ideas to devops, my mentor and others throughout the internship. It has been really refreshing hearing great feedback from them and on my work so far. It has been really reassuring.

What would you tell a student interested in interning at TDi?

I would say just go for it!

I know a big thing, especially for college students, is the fear of rejection. I’ve had that same fear myself. I applied for this position knowing that I am capable of doing all of the tasks that are required and that I have plenty of experience. Both work but also in-school experience. So, I applied, but I still had doubts in myself. But look where I’m at now.

Just know that you’re more than capable of interning, whether it be here with TDi or wherever else your ventures take you. Just believe in yourself, that’s the main thing.

Stay tuned for more Internship Spotlights

Keep your eyes fixed on our updates page as we have more intern spotlights coming throughout the summer!