Cybersecurity Education

Making Skills Visible in Cybersecurity — Part 3: Feedback, Critique & Growth Growth Isn’t Just Technical Everyone says they want to grow. But when feedback stings, conflict escalates, or someone misreads your tone in Slack—it’s harder than it sounds. Cybersecurity isn’t just about detection and defense. It’s also about dialogue and disagreement. That’s why this post focuses on three areas where invisible skills become visible in how we respond: Taking feedback with curiosity, not ego Navigating critique (especially from peers) Growing from conflict and friction on a team 1. Feedback Isn’t an Attack In tech, feedback is often seen as a red flag—“You did something wrong.” But in high-functioning teams, it’s a sign of trust and investment. ...

Making Skills Visible in Cybersecurity — Part 1: Skills You Can’t See on a Resume Why This Series? Every week, I work with students and early-career professionals trying to break into cybersecurity. And while the advice often starts with “get your certs” or “build a homelab,” what’s missing is just as important: The invisible skills. I’m talking about: Knowing how to stay calm during chaos Making risk-based decisions in gray areas Translating technical findings into business impact Asking good questions when you don’t know something Taking initiative without being told These are the skills that don’t neatly fit into the Skills section of a resume. But they’re the ones that shape trust, credibility, and long-term success in the field. ...

Beyond the Firewall: Part 5 – Measuring Soft Skills in Cybersecurity Introduction It’s easy to assign a grade to a lab or a test. But how do you evaluate something like adaptability under pressure or collaborative leadership during an incident response? In cybersecurity education and early career development, we often say that soft skills matter. Yet, we rarely measure them with the same intent and structure as we do technical ones. ...

Beyond the Firewall: Part 3 – Collaboration, Conflict, and Control Introduction In security, the stakes are high—and so are emotions. Especially during red-team/blue-team drills, security audits, or live incident response scenarios. That’s why in Part 3 of our “Beyond the Firewall” series, we’re focusing on how students and new professionals can build the interpersonal resilience to manage disagreement, assert their role appropriately, and de-escalate tension when things go sideways. This isn’t just about being nice. It’s about maintaining operational control during the moments when every second and every message matters. ...

Beyond the Firewall: Part 2 – Teaching Technical Communication in Cybersecurity Introduction In Part 1 of our Beyond the Firewall series, we highlighted why soft skills like communication and empathy are just as vital as technical know-how. In this post, we go deeper into technical communication—what it means in cybersecurity, why it’s often overlooked, and how you can teach it directly in your IT curriculum or onboarding program. Strong technical communication helps: ...

Beyond the Firewall: Part 1 – Why Soft Skills Make or Break Cyber Careers Introduction You can teach someone how to configure a firewall. But can you teach them how to stay calm during a data breach, explain complex issues to a non-technical executive, or collaborate with a peer who disagrees with their approach? These aren’t technical skills—they’re soft skills, and in today’s cybersecurity landscape, they are often the deciding factor between a good hire and a great one. ...

Building an AI-Powered Cybersecurity Risk Matrix: From Logs to Actionable Risk Scores Introduction Risk matrices are foundational to cybersecurity—helping organizations assess and prioritize threats based on likelihood and impact. But what if we could take that a step further? What if a system could analyze raw security logs, evaluate key attributes of an event, and automatically score risk without needing human triage every time? In this blog, we’ll build a lightweight simulation of an AI-powered risk matrix engine, using basic Python and rule-based logic (you could extend it with machine learning later). This project is perfect for cybersecurity students, professionals, and educators wanting to make risk management concepts more tangible. ...