AttackIQ Hack Your Career Ep. 3: Bev Benson + Tracy Cohen

### Overview In this episode of AttackIQ's "Hack Your Career" live stream, host Beverly Benson interviews Tracy Cohen, an Information Security Engineer currently working across a family of biopharma companies. Cohen shares her unconventional path into cybersecurity, detailing how she leveraged non-traditional internships, transitioned through entry-level IT roles at a Managed Service Provider (MSP), and developed both technical and leadership competencies.

### Key Topics - **Career Transition and Early Foundations:** Exploring fields like nursing, law, and law enforcement before discovering cybersecurity as the ideal convergence of technology, protection, and high-energy problem-solving. Cohen holds a bachelor's degree in computer science with a concentration in network security. - **Non-Technical Internships and Transferable Skills:** Cohen interned with the United States Attorney's Office assisting lead criminal investigators on classified cases ranging from violent crime to dark web activities. The experience fostered skills in evidence handling, understanding malicious intent and motives, working in hectic environments, and building trust. - **Mentorship and Peer Networks:** Cohen highlights the value of peer mentorship among women at an MSP, current leadership mentorship guiding her toward management, and key career philosophies such as "trust but verify." - **Breaking In via Managed Service Providers:** Facing the catch-22 of needing experience to get entry-level security jobs, Cohen started as a builds engineer doing hardware repairs, transitioned to the help desk, and actively took initiative on security tickets, earning a promotion to information security analyst within months. - **Client Communication and Justifying Value:** Navigating client resistance to security spending by using industry vulnerability data and real-time attack simulations to demonstrate exposure and prove the value of controls.

### Technical Details - **Security Operations and Tooling:** In her first security analyst role, Cohen handled alert triage across multiple platforms, phishing email analysis, and policy configuration for Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tools. - **Incident Response Under Pressure:** During her first week as an analyst, Cohen was deployed to triage a live ransomware attack across multiple locations with hundreds of machines per site, successfully assisting in containment and environment reconstruction from backups. - **Hands-on Exploration and Tools:** Self-study using safe lab environments to learn offensive concepts, Wi-Fi password brute-forcing, network compromise mechanisms, and Kali Linux. - **Certifications and Focus Areas:** Recommended foundational tracks including CompTIA (A+, Network+, Security+) and the Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP / Associate of (ISC)²), alongside pursuing emerging opportunities in cloud security.

### Takeaways - Entry-level IT and MSP environments provide broad exposure to varied technologies and industries, making them practical stepping stones into cybersecurity. - Initiative, relationship-building, and soft skills are just as crucial as technical acumen when advancing from help desk to security roles. - Organizations such as Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) offer valuable networking, conference, and mentorship opportunities. - Growth requires stepping outside your comfort zone, guided by Neale Donald Walsch's quote: "Life begins at the end of your comfort zone."