Chief Information Security Officers

Learn as much as you can about cybersecurity and information security by reading books, articles, and journals and checking out videos on YouTube and at other sites. IBM’s What is a Cyberattack? (https://www.ibm.com/topics/cyber-attack) provides a good primer on the field. Check out glossaries of cybersecurity terms if you don’t understand certain words or concepts, or ask your computer science teacher for assistance. The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies provides a useful glossary at https://niccs.cisa.gov/cybersecurity-career-resources/vocabulary.

Join student organizations such as the Technology Student Association (https://tsaweb.org), which will provide you with a chance to explore career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and participate in summer exploration programs. Some professional organizations have membership categories for students. For example, the Association for Computing Machinery offers membership for high school and college students. Members receive Communications of the ACM and XRDS (the organization’s magazine for students) and other resources.

Participate in information interviews and job shadowing experiences with CISOs and other types of cybersecurity professionals to better understand the field.

Finally, participate in cybersecurity competitions to hone your skills. Examples include the CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Defense Competition (https://www.uscyberpatriot.org/competition/Competition-Overview/competition-overview) and the MAGIC Capture the Flag Competition (https://magicinc.org). Other competitions are hosted by the Technology Student Association (https://tsaweb.org/competitions-programs/tsa/middle-school-competitions), which offers a Cybersecurity Foundations competition, and SkillsUSA (http://www.skillsusa.org), which offers a Cybersecurity competition. In addition, ask your computer science teacher to suggest local competitions.