Cyber Careers – Master Instructor by Karen Tulloh

Editor’s note: this one is a little different – fun and interesting

Name? Several people have called me various rap names, since my rap video was posted on LinkedIn. “A$AP Ken” and “NMAP Cowboy” seemed to be some of the popular ones.

Where are you located? Houston, Texas

JOB

Who do you work for? Cybrary

How many years have you worked in cybersecurity? I’ve been sprinkled in the mix for many years now. 6+ years seems like a good figure to go with.

What do you do in your job? Besides pestering the Director of Research, Joe Perry, I focus on educating students around the world. Most of my courses focus on offensive topics, like XSS and SQL injection, but I also teach forensics (so I can catch myself after I hack myself).

What do you like most about your job?  The overall impact. I am able to help people improve their lives and the lives of their families.

What work did you do prior to this position? I worked in the healthcare industry, trying to keep clinicians from clicking on nefarious links in emails. 

What do you see as your next step?  I’m helping on Antonio T. Smith Jr’s Presidential campaign right now, so who knows?

Salary range for your position? It’s a startup, so it’s not market rate. The normal base for someone in a similar type of role at a larger company is probably $120K-$140K+.

EDUCATION & GROWTH

Degree or no degree? Yes, Master’s in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance and B.S. in Information Systems, with a major of Cybersecurity Management. I want to stress, though, that a degree doesn’t help you get a job. This industry is mostly about skills and networking, so focus on those and not on getting $100K of debt. If you are looking to get into the industry and hit 6-figures within a few years, go get AWS certs and get some experience. I don’t know anyone working as a Solutions Architect that is below $115K right now and most of them only have 1-2 years in the industry.

Certifications? EC-Council CEH and CHFI. Funny (at least I think so) digression on certifications. I failed the CHFI the first time and my spouse said “I don’t kiss guys that fail the CHFI,” so I hurried and passed it a few weeks later.

What do you do to stay up-to-date or grow in cyber? I constantly learn new things. I find the best way for me to learn something is to decide to create a course on it because that causes me to be the best at it.

Favorite cyber news source and/or podcast?  The traditional stuff, like Dark Reading or Hacker News. I am probably one of the few InfoSec people that prefers spending their days off learning more about online marketing and sales funnels.

ANYTHING ELSE/OTHER COMMENTS

I’ve been nominated for the SC Media Reboot Award for Outstanding Educator, so please write them letters if you think I should win. 10 letters per day from every person reading this should do the trick. (Editor’s note: I said this would be somewhat funny didn’t I?)

View the original post here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cyber-careers-master-instructor-karen-tulloh-pmp-cissp-cism/

If you are interested in contributing to this project you can contact Karen on LinkedIn or send an email to KarenTCyber@gmail.com.