Magic Mirror on the Wall,
who is the fairest of them all?
Oh blessed be this day, this faithful day, that we can all join in arms to celebrate the coming and passing of the day we adore, and dread, most: Presentations. Brothers, sisters, and all of those who care to lend an ear, please do so, as in this moment of solidarity we stand in utter awe.
In all seriousness, this blog post will not be like most others. There will not be progress report. There will not be a part five. There will not be a continuation.
But that does not mean this is the end! This blog post merely marks the end of one journey and the start of another. Our time here in security was short, but the knowledge we gained was vast, and we hope to share our heartfelt story with anyone who chooses to read this post.
So valued reader, from the four of us at Team Snow White: Aaron Murray, Hana Ra, Jeremy Ho, and Vincent Le, we graciously thank you for sticking around for this wild ride. Many tears were shed, much blood was lost, but we persevered through it all. We hope you enjoy our final installment of Team Snow White’s blogs, see you around.
Takeaways From This Program
1. We gained insights on industry experience.
Without the Cyber Defenders program, we would not have been introduced to the many industry professionals that came to talk to us. As interns, we could have not possibly asked for a better introduction to the cyber security world. In that sense, we want to thank the Cyber Defenders program for providing a wholesome and loving experience while also providing a space where we could build our fundamentals as security enthusiasts.
2. We learned how to work as a team.
It takes a lot of courage and willpower to go out of out of your way to integrate yourself into a group of strangers. Luckily, it seems that there was not much friction in coming together as a group. With the introduction of team building exercises and group activities, our thick walls were being quickly torn down. In the blink of an eye our team dynamic evolved. We quickly learned how to delegate roles and split work evenly. On the same note, we also learned how to cover for each other’s weaknesses. This helped us work more effectively and gave us a better sense of direction. This will be most helpful for the work we will face in the near future.
3. We gained hands on experience of conducting research and creating tangible outcomes.
We created our poster that brings our whole journey together starting from researching about AWS services and their vulnerabilities, developing our tool, and our future implementation for improvement. The feedback were positive. In fact, we won the first place as the best poster as well as the most industry relevant project. It was great experience to conduct an industry related research, building a tool, and present it in a form polished poster.
Acknowledgements
A very special thanks to Vaibhav, Nick, Johnsy, Varun, and Gabe. Words cannot describe how thankful we all are, we only hope that our gratitude was shown through our work and our actions.
And a very, very, VERY, special thanks to you, valued reader. From Team Snow White, you are the fairest of them all.
