Air Force veteran Frankie Sclafani considers himself lucky that his military experience translated directly to his civilian career as a cybersecurity expert.
Other veterans haven’t had as smooth of a professional transition. Sclafani said they may feel lost after leaving the military for civilian life and a new potential career.
“When you leave the military, a lot of people don’t tell you this, but there is a little bit of a sense of feeling lost and maybe directionless or missionless,” Sclafani told IT Brew.
He sees cybersecurity as a welcoming destination for veterans, whose years spent tracking adversaries can translate well to a cyber career with its share of threat hunting.
SOC’d and loaded. A security operations center (SOC)—a hub for monitoring IT infrastructure—sends alerts about potentially malicious activity. A SOC analyst often examines the findings, perhaps a phishing message or an unexpected login. Someone as familiar with following procedures as a military pro might appreciate the built-in structure found in many of these command centers, according to Sclafani. SOCs frequently have a hierarchy of tiers with specific and increasing responsibilities.
A veteran, he adds, has been trained to think like an adversary, and they can potentially put themselves in the headspace of a threat actor trying to evade detection.
“Having that discipline and that structure and those procedures helps ensure we get all of the correct intelligence that we need,” Sclafani said. For an alert like a phishing email, he has seen “next-level” investigations in a SOC that include interacting with a phishing link through a sandbox environment, and reviewing executables hosted on a phishing message’s domain.
With SkillBridge, active duty members receive their full military pay and benefits while they’re interning at a civilian company.
“While I didn’t utilize SkillBridge when I was transitioning out of the military, I wish that I did, and I wish that I knew more about it at the time I was leaving active duty,” Sclafani said.
Sclafani said he understands how “intimidating and challenging” a new career phase can be for a military vet who has ended their service.
“It’s a scary transition. So, anything that we can do, I think, as a population, to help make that transition a little bit easier for those who decided to serve and set them up for success and good opportunities is going to be big,” he said.
