FeatureAnna’s role on the Unit 42 team is to understand the cyberthreat landscape and provide intelligence assessments to help customers prioritise their actions, time and resources. As a threat hunter and dark web expert, she typically spends her day researching new malicious tools, tactics and procedures discovered by the global security community.
One of her achievements is mentoring women who want to enter this industry or further their cybersecurity career – she utilise her personal experiences, insights, and professional networks to help them best navigate where they are in their career progression and what they need to do next to realise their dreams, goals and to reach their desired next step.
Many people might think of technology as being a cookie-cutter setting – they believe there is a mold you have to fit with a specific set of experience, behaviors, skills, and maybe even genders. However, every individual brings unique qualities to a role. Cybersecurity is a field that benefits with more newer ideas and out-of-the-box thinking, and we need people with different backgrounds to join the industry to foster further.
Anna sees one of the main coaching goals as encouraging young women to respect all elements in the industry to better understand their own strengths and limitations, because they all have their own unique attributes as individuals.
Cybersecurity is such a young industry and full of potential that it does not just need people who are maths, engineering and coding; the job demands a much more robust and diverse skill set. If working in technology interests you, her advice is to just be yourself – as your personality, ideas, perspectives, and diverse experiences are welcome at the majority of the workplaces.
Anna’s interest towards the cybersecurity sector developed based on how international affairs and security work in parallel. The journey within the cybersecurity field has been very exciting as it is such an ever-changing sector, offering the opportunity to work with law enforcement agencies, policy makers, researchers, and private sectors across the globe.
From a security point of view, there is great value in threat intelligence if it is shared rapidly on a wider level amongst vendors, governments and commercial organisations.
Cybersecurity is a young industry with potential and does not just need people who are maths, engineering and coding and demands a more robust skill set.
