Angela Clark & Rebecca Clark

Don’t let tuition be the barrier to a high-demand career! This dynamic session is the essential roadmap for aspiring students and career professionals returning to graduate school and seeking funding for their entry into cybersecurity. The session will unlock a comprehensive and multi-layered funding strategy that extends beyond traditional scholarships.

Attendees will receive actionable guidance on securing a range of financial resources, including merit and need-based funding, navigating federal and government aid, and strategic networking. Speakers will share proven techniques to build high-value connections with industry professionals and organizations that offer funding, mentorship and career pathway support.

Led by a seasoned faculty mentor and an NSF-awarded graduate research fellow, this presentation provides the crucial insights to successfully transition into or advance within the cybersecurity field without financial burden. Invest one hour to secure a financial future in cybersecurity!

Ramya M

In the DevOps-powered, AI-driven world, machine identities have discreetly surpassed human identities by a factor of hundreds. Credentials – API keys, tokens and certificates – are stored in each container, microservice and model pipeline component. If left unmanaged, these credentials can lead to serious security breaches. The topic of this session is how businesses can take back control of these invisible identities. In addition to understanding credential exposure risks in CI/CD and Gen AI workflows, attendees will examine real-world attack examples and acquire contemporary defense techniques like automated rotation, just-in-time access and secret scanning tools. A practical framework for handling machine identities at scale while striking a balance between developer speed and system resilience will be given to attendees.

Ms. Kritika

With the changing nature of cyber threats and their complexity and sophistication, a system based on rules has difficulties in keeping up with adversaries who are adaptive. The presentation is an innovative interdisciplinary solution that employs the neuroscience principles to improve the AI-based cybersecurity defense mechanisms. The use patterns of the research conducted in cognitive neuroscience on the topic of pattern recognition, memory consolidation and adaptive learning show how brain-inspired algorithms can transform the methods of threat detection and response.

It discusses three of those applications, including neural plasticity-inspired adaptive firewalls that learn and adapt attack patterns on-the-fly; cognitive load theory applications to optimizing security analyst decision-making under load; and neuromorphic computing architectures to ultra-low latency threat detection. This study indicates that zero- day attacks (60% better as compared to traditional machine-learning techniques) and false positive reduction (35% reduction) are significantly sweeter than typical machine-learning techniques.
This interdisciplinary amalgamation is responding to the increasing demand of responsive, intelligent security networks that have the capability to foresee and counter high-grade enemies. AI systems can be developed to emulate and improve these natural defenses and create a novel paradigm of cybersecurity resilience by comprehending how the human brain processes and reasons threats and makes security choices.

Sajida Shabanali

Join this exciting journey from learning stations to the final destination as cybersecurity professionals. This presentation will outline strategic stops along the employment express, a metaphorical express train route designed to equip attendees with the essential tools and insights needed for a successful transition from learner to worker in the dynamic field of cybersecurity.

The employment express represents a structured pathway that students can follow as they navigate the complexities of entering the cybersecurity workforce. Each stop along the route symbolizes a crucial step in their professional development, offering targeted advice, resources and actionable strategies.

The goal is to empower attendees not just with knowledge but also with the confidence to embark on their cybersecurity careers. Throughout the presentation, presenters will emphasize the importance of understanding one’s unique skill set and aligning it with diverse roles available in the cybersecurity landscape.

This also will serve as a personalized roadmap to guide their career development. While traveling along the employment express, participants will leave with a sense of purpose and direction, equipped to take the next steps toward their future cybersecurity careers. Together, attendees will be prepared to meet the demands of this ever-evolving field, ready to contribute meaningfully and navigate their professional paths with confidence.

Embarking on this journey is an exciting opportunity for participants to explore the vast possibilities within cybersecurity, and the presenters look forward to guiding them every step of the way.

Madeline DuPlessis

Cybersecurity teams are experts at hunting for human insider threats, but what happens when the newest, most privileged insider isn’t human at all? AI agents are being integrated into enterprise systems with unprecedented speed and granted access to everything from HR data and financial reports to sensitive patient records. They operate with legitimate credentials and are designed to execute complex, multi-step tasks autonomously, making them the perfect vector for a new class of sophisticated attacks.

This presentation pulls back the curtain on this emerging threat landscape. It will reframe AI agents not as passive tools but as a new type of privileged identity that can be manipulated, compromised or tricked into exfiltrating an organization’s most critical data. Drawing on real-world use cases in high-stakes environments like healthcare, this session will demonstrate how attackers can exploit agentic workflows. More importantly, it will provide a concrete security playbook for this new reality, focusing on applying zero trust principles to AI, threat modeling agentic workflows, and developing new strategies for monitoring and hunting these “ghosts in the machine.”

Olukemi Olaniran

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping education at every level – from elementary to post-secondary – through tools like ChatGPT that assist with writing, coding and research. However, this rapid adoption raises urgent ethical and cybersecurity challenges: academic dishonesty, data privacy risks and unequal access to technology. As AI becomes embedded in learning environments, the critical question emerges: Are educational institutions equipped to teach its responsible use?

This presentation explores findings from a nationwide survey of over 240 Nigerian university students who examined how learners perceive the ethical implications of AI in education. Results show that students’ ethical awareness is not shaped by familiarity with AI tools but by their understanding of risks such as bias, misinformation and misuse. Those who recognized these challenges demonstrated greater responsibility and digital integrity.

The session will discuss how educators and administrators can embed ethics and cybersecurity principles into curricula, faculty development and institutional policy. It argues for a shift from technology adoption to ethical preparedness, teaching students not only how to use AI but also how to use it responsibly.

Participants will gain actionable strategies for integrating ethical risk discussions, policy frameworks and inclusive digital literacy practices to strengthen the cybersecurity readiness of future learners.

Rishika Reddy Akavaram & Jaclyn Sanchez

As organizations adopt AI to accelerate products and operations, they simultaneously create new and rapidly evolving attack surfaces. This session projects the 2026 threatscape using lessons from 2025 threat trends and contemporary AI research, and it pairs forward-looking risks with hands-on defensive tactics. Adversary techniques will be examined, such as AI-enhanced reconnaissance, model inversion/data-poisoning, synthetic social engineering and adaptive malware, then demonstrate how defenders can respond with AI-assisted threat hunting, autonomous containment playbooks and continuous model trust validation. Short technical demos (SIEM anomaly visualization, AD attack-graph mapping in a lab, cloud misconfiguration scanning, LLM-driven incident summarization and a model-drift simulation) show concrete, reproducible approaches attendees can replicate in a safe environment. Participants will leave with a four-step AI security readiness roadmap, deployable playbook templates and concise checklists for protecting models, training data and cloud resources so they can secure innovation while staying ahead of intelligent adversaries.

George Sandford

In cybersecurity and beyond, traditional hiring pathways often obscure opportunities behind jargon, gatekeeping and systemic bias. This session explores how open source intelligence (OSINT) empowers job seekers – especially those from diverse, nontraditional or historically excluded backgrounds – to navigate the job market with clarity and agency. In this session, the presenters will unpack how to decode organizational culture, align transferable skills with real-world role expectations and anticipate hiring needs using publicly available data. Attendees will leave with actionable techniques to bypass gatekeeping, surface hidden opportunities and position themselves as informed, adaptive candidates ready to thrive in inclusive, mission-driven environments.

Alexandria Segovia

Generative AI and agent frameworks amplify our ability to stitch together publicly available facts into coherent narratives, but that power cuts both ways. This talk uses a defensively framed, real-world lens to show how personal data exposed online can be weaponized into highly persuasive social-engineering pretexts, and how those same AI techniques can be repurposed to reduce harm. Through a fully consented, sanitized demonstration based on the presenter’s own publicly visible footprint, we illustrate at a conceptual level how aggregated signals increase attacker success. The technical section deconstructs the enabling factors of common leakage vectors, identity signals, and contextual profiling, and introduces ethical, AI-assisted exposure assessments as a way for individuals and families to discover where their information surfaces online. In addition to AI powered exposure assessments, the session also focuses on personal protections and recovery practices: tightening social-media and account privacy settings, removing or consolidating legacy accounts, using strong multi-factor authentication and password managers, applying credit and identity-theft freezes, reducing oversharing, and setting up monitoring and alerting for suspicious activity. Attendees will learn how to run safe, consent-based tabletop and red/blue exercises, how to translate simulated findings into individual action plans, and how to counsel friends or family who may be targeted. The session reframes data security as a personal safety practice as much as an organizational responsibility, because when AI scales social engineering, everyone’s privacy, reputation, and livelihood are at stake.

Panelists: Krista Arndt, Chaunda Dallas
Moderator: Heather Costa

There are many amazing women featured in “Midnight in the War Room,” the groundbreaking documentary on cyber war. In this candid and inspiring panel, several women will discuss the challenges they faced during their careers within the cybersecurity industry, one that has historically employed more males than females. Through personal experiences, career-defining moments and lessons learned, these women will reveal how resilience and hard work paved the way for future generations of women to make a profound impact on protecting our digital and critical infrastructure.

Morgan Garland & Lynn Dohm

Your WiCyS membership is your strategic advantage—your WiCyS Edge—and we’re here to show you how to maximize its value. Join us for a fun, fast-paced session that breaks down the real ROI of belonging, powered by proven data. Learn exactly how to leverage the WiCyS ecosystem and the lifecycle of your career with our nonprofit organization. Don’t leave your benefits on the table—join Lynn Dohm and Morgan Garland to make the most of your membership. 

Grace Pfohl & Lindsey Nicholas

Governance, risk and compliance (GRC) has traditionally been a manual, fragmented process dominated by spreadsheets, siloed frameworks and repetitive evidence requests. As organizations scale and regulatory demands evolve, this approach becomes increasingly inefficient and difficult to sustain.

This session offers a tactical guide to modernizing GRC through automation, AI and engineering principles. The presenters will explore the foundations of GRC, including control design and framework harmonization, and then dive into how automation can streamline evidence collection, evaluation and reporting across multiple compliance domains.

A case study will demonstrate harmonizing compliance frameworks, mapping overlapping requirements, consolidating evidence requests and using AI to ingest and align new standards. Attendees will learn why harmonization is essential for scalable compliance and how automation can make it achievable.

This session also will examine the current challenges in GRC, including manual audits, reactive compliance and the limitations of traditional tooling. The session will highlight how AI and automation can address these issues while emphasizing the importance of human-in-the-loop design and maintaining security oversight.

Through a tactical case study and demo, attendees will see how GRC engineering can reduce operational burden, improve audit readiness and enable resilient, scalable compliance programs. Participants will leave with practical strategies to harmonize frameworks, automate compliance workflows and engineer GRC functions for the future.

Dr. Liz Fortibui

Everyone is under constant pressure to stay current in a field where the learning curve never flattens. Brilliant analysts burn out trying to chase every new certification, and talented engineers stall in their careers because they can’t figure out what skills to prioritize next.

Traditional career development approaches aren’t cutting it anymore. Mentorship programs have waiting lists. Training budgets get slashed. Conferences happen once a year, but threats evolve daily.

Within the past two years, AI isn’t just changing how to defend networks, it’s revolutionizing how people can manage their own professional growth. The presenter has been testing tools, talking to professionals at every career stage and documenting what actually works.
This session shares everything about using AI as a career co-pilot. It will cover practical strategies for identifying skill gaps, optimizing a professional presence and preparing for opportunities. Personally used tools will be demoed and frameworks will be shared that have helped dozens of mentored professionals.

There also will be an honest talk about the pitfalls. People have made questionable career decisions based on AI recommendations, and the presenter will share what was learned about maintaining human judgment while leveraging these powerful tools.

Katherine Pettit

This presentation explores how applying universal design principles to artificial intelligence (AI) development enhances both accessibility and cybersecurity. By integrating inclusivity from the start, organizations can reduce bias, improve trust in AI-driven systems and strengthen resilience against evolving threats. The session demonstrates that designing for accessibility does not only benefit users with disabilities, it also makes technology more usable, ethical and secure for everyone.

Through a practical lens, this session examines the intersection of accessibility, bias mitigation and cybersecurity, offering frameworks that bridge human-centered design and secure system architecture. Attendees will gain insights into how inclusive AI practices lead to cleaner data sets, and more transparent algorithms and systems that anticipate rather than amplify risk.

Participants will leave understanding that accessibility is not a compliance task, it is a catalyst for universal security. When things are designed with everyone in mind, technology is created that is safer, smarter and more resilient for all users.

Brooke Schärli & Alex Schärli

This session explores the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in combating illicit activities on the dark web based on recent qualitative research with law enforcement, cybersecurity practitioners and academic experts. Attendees will gain insight into how AI tools – such as machine learning for pattern recognition and natural language processing – enhance the speed and accuracy of dark web investigations, serving as a critical force multiplier for professionals facing rapid, anonymized threats.

The session examines core technical opportunities and constraints, including the challenge of encrypted data and the need for human-in-the-loop verification to avoid false positives. It also addresses significant ethical and legal considerations such as data privacy, algorithmic bias, cross-border jurisdiction and the admissibility of AI-generated evidence. Attendees will learn policy and operational recommendations for implementing AI effectively and ethically, emphasizing multidisciplinary training, international cooperation and continuous human oversight.

Participants will leave equipped to recognize both the potential and limitations of AI in this domain, appreciate the ongoing need for human judgment, and articulate best practices that align technical innovation with legal and social responsibility. This session is designed for those seeking a deeper understanding of how AI advances law enforcement and cybersecurity strategy against emerging online criminal threats while ensuring foundational rights and ethical standards remain protected.

Sneha Malshetti

As cloud environments become the backbone of modern infrastructure, attackers increasingly exploit their scalability, misconfigurations, and shared-responsibility gaps. Traditional perimeter-based defenses often lack visibility into attacker behavior within dynamic cloud ecosystems. Honeypots and honeytokens, which are deceptive systems that emulate real services and tokens within these real systems, offer a proactive mechanism to detect and analyze malicious activity targeting cloud assets.

This presentation investigates the deployment of cloud-based honeypots and honeytokens. It will cover the monitoring of these honeypots without producing much noise and avoiding false positives. We explore practical implementations using cloud-native services such as AWS Lambda, S3, Cloudtrail, EventBridge, and containerized honeypots on Kubernetes clusters(EKS). Furthermore, we examine integration with centralized SIEM solutions and automated alerting pipelines, all within the cloud itself.

The research highlights how data collected from honeypots can enhance threat intelligence, expose attacker tactics, discover insider attacks, and support compliance monitoring in multi-cloud architectures. By leveraging deception as a defensive strategy, organizations can gain deeper situational awareness, identify early intrusion attempts, and strengthen the resilience of their cloud infrastructure.

Ilakiya Ulaganathan

As organizations accelerate AI adoption, an often overlooked risk is emerging from third-party vendor applications that embed AI capabilities. Limited visibility into these tools can create vulnerabilities ranging from data privacy issues to regulatory non-compliance, yet many organizations assume that external applications are inherently secure. This session explores the challenges and strategies for identifying, assessing and mitigating AI risks originating from third-party vendors. Attendees will learn practical approaches to extend AI governance beyond internal systems, align with emerging regulatory expectations and safeguard their organizations from hidden AI-driven threats.

Rabia Bajwa

Traditional cybersecurity education often overlooks the needs of neurodiverse learners, including students with dyslexia, ADHD, autism or other cognitive differences despite the unique strengths they bring to the field. This presentation introduces an inclusive education framework to make cybersecurity learning environments more accessible, effective and equitable.

Through real classroom examples and practical strategies (e.g., multimodal teaching, cognitive load management, flexible lab structures), attendees will learn how to design instruction that removes barriers while enhancing engagement. The session targets educators, trainers and program leaders looking to strengthen talent pipelines through inclusive practices.

Tonya Drummonds

Are you a high-performer feeling the squeeze of a lean team and a stagnant career path? You’re not alone. The rules of the corporate game have changed, but your professional growth doesn’t have to stop. This session provides a practical, actionable playbook to help you thrive, not just survive, in today’s environment.

In this interactive 45-minute talk, we’ll equip you with three essential strategies:
1. The Art of the Strategic “”No””: Learn to set professional boundaries and protect your time by making smart, deliberate choices about your workload.
2. The Transferable Skills Spotlight: Discover how your “”soft skills””—from negotiation to strategic communication—are your most valuable assets, making you indispensable and adaptable to any market condition.
3. Redefining Success: Shift your mindset from chasing titles to building a career portfolio that prioritizes long-term growth and fulfillment on your own terms.

You’ll walk away with concrete tactics to prevent burnout, advocate for your worth, and confidently navigate a career path that’s sustainable, impactful, and uniquely yours.”

Shannon Forcina, Shauna Stoeger & Lydia Looney

This presentation explores the integration of specialized AI agents to streamline and enhance
security operations. We will present two complementary systems: a response analysis agent
(“TLDR”) and an employee outreach agent (“LlamaLine”), designed to function both
independently and collaboratively.

The LlamaLine agent assists security teams by automatically generating outreach messages for
security alerts, significantly reducing the time analysts spend on manual editing and template
modifications. Meanwhile, TLDR summarizes security cases, highlights critical fields, and
recommends next steps based on established runbooks.

This research demonstrates how these AI systems can minimize manual effort, creating a
feedback loop that enhances overall response effectiveness. Our approach addresses common
challenges in security operations, such as alert fatigue and inconsistent documentation, while
promoting better collaboration between teams.

We will share our development methodology, initial testing results, and lessons learned in
building these specialized security agents. The presentation will also highlight practical
techniques for creating security-focused AI systems that augment human analysts rather than
replace them, ultimately improving response time and overall security posture.

Attendees will gain insights into the technical architecture of these AI agents, understand
implementation considerations for their integration into security operations, and learn strategies
for fostering collaboration through intelligent automation.

Shubham Mishra & Meghana Rao

This talk will explore the growing security challenge of AI/ML systems that leverage external tools, APIs or agentic components (for example, function calling, plugins or orchestrated tool chains). Attackers are evolving tactics to inject malicious instructions, poison tool metadata or orchestrate cross-tool attacks to subvert seemingly benign pipelines.

This session will present real-world scenarios showing how prompt injection, tool poisoning, name collisions and orchestration abuse can lead to data leakage, privilege escalation or unintended commands. It will focus on how and why the attacker is able to manipulate the system not just that they can. Then, a layered defense strategy combining input sanitization, approval flows, sandboxing, anomaly detection and human-in-the-loop checkpoints will be proposed.

This session is designed for both practitioners and aspiring defenders. Attendees don’t need to be AI researchers to benefit, but the session will go deep enough into technical nuance to give them actionable ideas. Participants will leave with a clear mental model of how AI tool chains can be exploited and concrete paths to strengthen them.

Shrutirupa Banerjiee

Artificial Intelligence isn’t just reshaping how we defend systems; it’s also changing how adversaries think, plan, and attack. As AI becomes more accessible, threat actors are finding creative ways to integrate it into their operations, from crafting smarter phishing campaigns to building adaptive malware that learns to evade detection.

In this session, we’ll explore how AI is quietly but steadily redefining modern malware. We’ll look at examples of how ransomware and polymorphic malware are evolving in this AI-driven world, where code doesn’t just mutate randomly, but intelligently. The discussion will also touch upon proof-of-concepts, underground chatter around AI-based tools, and how these developments are slowly blurring the line between automation and real-time decision-making in attacks.

But this isn’t all doom and gloom. The goal is to understand what’s real, what’s hype, and what defenders can actually do about it. Attendees will leave with a clearer picture of how AI is transforming the cyber threat landscape, practical ways to spot early signs of “intelligent” malware, and a few thoughts on where ethical boundaries and innovation might collide in the years ahead.

Carla Voorhees & Gayatri Debnath

In cybersecurity, technical expertise is essential but it’s not enough. The professionals who make the biggest impact and advance into leadership aren’t always just technical; they’re the ones who can translate complexity into clarity, influence decision making and drive action across teams. This session dives into why impactful communication is as essential as detecting threats or writing detections and how developing this skill can significantly accelerate career growth. This session walks through real scenarios where the difference between escalation and resolution came down not to tooling or intelligence but to how the message was delivered, understood and acted on.

Whether a SOC analyst, threat hunter, engineer, aspiring leader or starting a career in cyber, attendees will gain insights into tailoring a communication style to executives, legal teams, PR, engineering and end users without watering down the technical integrity. The session also will highlight how strong communication builds credibility, visibility and influence, opening doors to opportunities that technical skill alone may not.

This session will empower attendees to elevate their voice, drive security outcomes and position themselves for career growth by learning to communicate with clarity, confidence and impact.

Lorri Janssen-Anessi

In today’s interconnected ecosystem, cyber-risk communication often fails not because of technical limitations but because of translation gaps between teams. Analysts speak in vulnerabilities and indicators; executives speak in impact and continuity. Bridging that divide is essential for achieving true resilience. This session provides a structured approach to communicating cyber and supply chain risk across organizational levels from operations to executive leadership. Using real-world examples and communication models, it will demonstrate how to transform complex technical data into clear, actionable insights for decision makers and external partners. Participants will learn techniques to tailor messages to non-technical audiences, align risk narratives with business goals, and use storytelling and visualization to convey urgency effectively.

The presentation concludes with practical templates and strategies to strengthen communication channels between security, procurement and leadership teams. Attendees will leave with proven methods to elevate conversations, foster collaboration and build trust across the supply chain.

Elizabeth Bell

Employees remain the first line of defense — and the easiest to deceive. *Human Firewalls 2.0* rebuilds security awareness for an era where phishing isn’t written by humans anymore. The talk introduces adaptive, gamified, and feedback-driven training models that evolve as fast as attackers do, blending psychology, AI, and education design.

Connar McCasland

We’ve spent years trying to patch vulnerabilities in our systems, but what about the ones in our relationships, communication, and collaboration?

You Can’t Patch People is a candid and practical talk about why “soft” skills like communication, empathy, persuasion, and storytelling are absolutely essential in cybersecurity. Whether you’re responding to an incident, leading a risk discussion with leadership, or building trust with end users, your people skills often matter just as much as your technical expertise.

This session breaks down how these human-centric skills show up across security roles, from SOC analysts to red teamers to GRC professionals, and how they can be the deciding factor between success and failure. You’ll hear real-world stories where good (or bad) communication shaped security outcomes, and walk away with actionable ways to build these competencies, even if you don’t think of yourself as a “people person.”

We’ll also explore how to identify and showcase your human skills in resumes, interviews, and team dynamics, especially helpful for newcomers or career changers who bring valuable experience from other industries.

Because at the end of the day, cybersecurity is a team sport. And you can’t patch people, but you can learn how to work with them.

Gospel Agu

Traditional threat intelligence systems remain largely reactive, responding only after an attack has occurred. However, industry findings from the IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index (2025) and Mandiant Global Perspectives Report reveal that organizations still struggle with delayed response times and limited foresight into emerging attack trends.

This presentation introduces a mathematical AI framework that applies iterative learning models in modular function spaces – specifically Mann, Ishikawa and Noor iterations – to enhance predictive threat intelligence. By incorporating modular function spaces, the framework achieves stronger convergence under non-linear and non-Euclidean conditions, allowing adaptive learning in dynamic cybersecurity environments.

Through Python (NumPy, scikit-learn) for algorithm implementation, Elastic Stack (ELK) for data aggregation and Kibana for visualization, the model is trained on historical incident data and refined iteratively to forecast potential threat vectors before manifestation. The iterative process enables the system to adjust its predictions as new patterns emerge, improving accuracy, stability and adaptability in threat detection.

By mapping results to MITRE ATT&CK frameworks, this work connects mathematical convergence principles with real-world adversarial behavior. The session highlights how modular-based iterative learning can bridge research and practice, providing security teams with predictive insights that transform reactive defense mechanisms into data-driven forecasting systems capable of identifying and mitigating attacks in advance.

Luis M Vicente

In an era where artificial intelligence (AI) and automation increasingly shape the cybersecurity landscape, technical mastery alone is no longer enough. This session explores how emotion – often overlooked in technical education – can become a powerful catalyst for deeper understanding and lasting learning in cybersecurity. By activating emotional memory, educators and mentors can help students internalize critical concepts such as ethical reasoning, situational awareness and threat response.

The presentation introduces a teaching framework that blends emotional engagement, storytelling and reflective practice with AI-driven tools. Through real classroom experiences, attendees will see how emotionally resonant scenarios, simulations and generative AI prompts can transform otherwise abstract cybersecurity topics into meaningful learning moments.

Participants will gain insight into designing lessons that connect logic with empathy, fostering resilience, curiosity and ethical responsibility in emerging professionals. By the end of the session, attendees will leave with evidence-based strategies for integrating effective learning into technical instruction along with practical examples of how AI can support inclusive, emotionally intelligent cybersecurity education.

This talk invites educators, mentors and practitioners to rethink how to teach security, not merely as a system to defend but as a human discipline to understand.

Vonesha Frost

Whether you’re fresh out of college, pivoting from another field, or just finished a bootcamp, starting your cybersecurity career can feel like stepping out of the tutorial and into a boss fight. In this talk, I’ll share my own journey into the industry—complete with awkward moments, unexpected wins, and lessons learned the hard way. We’ll cover practical tips for landing internships or entry-level roles, navigating your first job, and continuing to grow once you’re in. If you’re wondering how to level up in cybersecurity, this session is your co-op guide.