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ericgeater
Community Champion

Schooling an intern

My employer hired an intern to work a few hours per week. I wasn't thrilled with having to slow down our work pace for an intern, so he was toning and labeling jacks at first, and started assigning extensions to new telephones as his next "project".  Rudimentary stuff.

 

Turns out his minor is in cybersecurity, though.

 

He saw me cutting the MAC labels off new switch boxes before discarding them.  "Why you doin' that?"  So I told him about dumpster diving.

 

In the switch management system, I showed him the UI and said, "use inference to find out which guest AP is on the east side or west side of the building."

 

He toned out a possible faulty cable, and said, "its switch port is not lit.  Can I disconnect it?"  I said, "Sure! As long as you're certain you won't disconnect their cube partner."  He double-checked the tone again.

 

When I asked the company which recently did our VA for their data deletion strategy, the intern was aware of the correspondence and asked why that matters.  I told him that they now possess data about our network, architecture and infrastructure, and that we need reasonable assurance that this sensitive information is destroyed.  This led to a topic about banners, their usefulness to infiltrators -- and eventually led to a talk about NMAP.

He'd never seen NMAP before, and fell in love with it, apparently.  And he's starting to grow on me.

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A claim is as good as its veracity.
5 Replies
tmekelburg1
Community Champion


@ericgeater wrote:

My employer hired an intern to work a few hours per week. I wasn't thrilled with having to slow down our work pace for an intern, so he was toning and labeling jacks at first, and started assigning extensions to new telephones as his next "project".  Rudimentary stuff.

 

And he's starting to grow on me.


This is a great reminder that sometimes it's about giving back. Reminding ourselves that this was once us at the beginning of our career and how great it would have been if someone would have took the time to mentor us. Thanks for sharing! 

dcontesti
Community Champion

This is great to see.  Some of my brightest and most talented staff started as interns with the company.  I found that most of them (okay some were duds) had a thirst and interest in this thing called security.

 

One young lady that I had as a student now works for one of those three letter companies doing things that she says she would need to kill me if she told (LOL).....but has been steadily moving up.....nice to see.

 

Mentoring students/interns actually helped in me in the past as they would ask questions that I never thought of...

 

Good going, keep up the great effort.

 

d

 

CraginS
Defender I


@ericgeater wrote:

My employer hired an intern to work a few hours per week. I wasn't thrilled with having to slow down our work pace for an intern, so he was toning and labeling jacks at first, and started assigning extensions to new telephones as his next "project".  Rudimentary stuff.

...

 And he's starting to grow on me.


Eric,

It looks to me that you should have titled this thread

Schooled by an Intern.

 

Good work.

 

Craig

 

D. Cragin Shelton, DSc
Dr.Cragin@iCloud.com
My Blog
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Steve-Wilme
Advocate II

It's probably useful to have someone around who asks; Why?  We take so much for granted as they way we do things that we rarely stop to ask ourselves why anymore.  The thing about interns and apprentices is that most will ask the why question, which is far better than having someone who's taken a few classroom based courses, but who doesn't have the curiosity to ask why.

 

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Steve Wilme CISSP-ISSAP, ISSMP MCIIS
CISOScott
Community Champion

If you find a thirsty grasshopper, direct them to water. Or open the firehose. Either way they will drink as much as they want. Truly thirsty grasshoppers' thirsts are not easily quenched.

 

I remember asking for water and the best places provided it, the worst ones didn't.