Name: Marwa Naseer
Education: Bachelor’s degree in Internet and E-Security
University: University of Technology and Applied Science
What interested you to take up Cybersecurity as your field in your undergraduate degree? *
One of my goals for my career was to do something different than other girls and not to be limited to be teachers, doctors or lawyers. Cybersecurity is one of the difficult and challenging specializations where I could prove myself. Moreover, in this field we have seen men more than women, I thought that we need to change this notion and prove that women can do anything when they aim for it.
Was there a particular course / or courses that enjoyed in your college?
I think at the beginning of my studies when I started learning about IT, I studied courses like hardware and networking. where I learned the bits 0’s & 1’s and how they flow over wire or wireless medium. then, I realized that I use these things in my daily life but I don’t have the idea why they exist. for example, I see 0 & 1 on the switch button but I didn’t know its meaning. so on that time, it was like an imaginary world to me when I started to understand those things. then I went deeper and I knew that technology is a whole universe where we live and we make use of it without getting the real meaning. overtime I learned lots of things in IT then moving on to cybersecurity. where I started to see the different type of attack, exploits and vulnerabilities. then I learned how to use other types of OS like Linux and everything was beautiful and interesting.
How did you apply for Securado’ s Security Analyst jr?
Securado called me for an interview when I finished my final year exams and I was accepted.
Are you happy with Securado’s work culture?
Yes
What are your current responsibilities as a Security Analyst jr?
My everyday responsibilities as a Security Analyst jr are to analyse incidents, organize the data collected, relate the events to each other, how and why of the incident, after identifying the cause, we suggest remediations to reduce the impact of the incident. We report the same to the higher management by preparing the document.
Did you face any challenges as a Security Analyst so far? Explain how did you overcome it. (You can explain both technical or organisational challenges )
Yes, I have experienced lots of technical challenges mostly because this is my first job right after college so, I started to learn from the zero and I have faced lots of difficulties on how to analyze an incident very deeply, how to get into the root of this particular threat and come up with a countermeasure or solution that can help to get over that attack and to reduce any impacts that might cause. It was easy for me to overcome the difficulties I faced with my hard work and tons of help from my friends, boss, colleagues, and my seniors in the company.
On the other hand, I didn’t face many organizational challenges because I am a person who prefers to follow the rules and policies of the organization. Also, everyone is kind, helpful and understanding in Securado.
Are you interested in pursuing higher education in the same field or a different field?
yes, I would like to go for higher education in the future like Masters as it is my plan. But for now, for the next 5 years I am concentrating on upgrading myself and my skills in the same field.
Did you find any roadblocks because you were a young woman in tech?
Yes, being in the cybersecurity field as a woman is challenging mainly because organizations do not trust women in this field so they prefer to recruit men more than women. They doubt our capabilities as security professional. And also we faced a similar problem in college, lecturers were more worried that our male classmates will get better opportunities than us in the cybersecurity field.
Do you think the current Covid situation has changed your work for better or worse?
I think the whole covid situation was neither good nor bad because one of the good outcomes was that we can work from home at any time since we had sufficient resources available to us but it was boring to be at home alone working in a non-working environment and going to the workplace was also risky due to the pandemic.
What are your aspirations for your future?
I want to improve myself by gaining more experience in the cybersecurity field and in the future to pursue higher education in the same field.
Do you have any message for young women who are interested in tech?
Yes, I completely encourage young women to be in this field, it is an evolving and interesting field where every day you can find new things and use your critical thinking. You only need to trust in yourself, put your first step forward there is no place for boredom and a huge opportunity to see the reality of the technologies and related stuff. also, you can see how everything you learn here can be interrelated to our day-to-day life.
