Daniel Babaian is someone who knows how to make the most out of opportunities. As a gamer, he has long had an interest in computers, but it wasn’t until he was at university and not enjoying his double degree in business administration and IT at ACU that he really started to consider a career in the IT industry.

His father suggested a change of tack towards cyber security and the idea appealed.

Being drawn to technology and confident he could learn the associated skills, Babaian switched to a Bachelor degree course in cyber security at Macquarie University and loved it. He is due to graduate in September 2022, but has been juggling his study with a full-time role in his chosen field at AC3. He says that makes him unlike the rest of his cohort. “Most of them have the standard casual job, but no one that I’ve met has a full-time job as well.”

The role came about after he was able to secure a three-month internship at the firm. However, Babaian impressed his team leader so much that at the end of the internship he was offered a position as a SOC analyst. He went full-time at the beginning of 2022, while continuing to study. “It’s a bit challenging, but nothing hard work can’t do,” he says.

His experiences so far have not only taught him a huge amount of practical knowledge, but also how much of his career aspirations are in his own hands. “I was shown that I hold the cards,” he says, regarding his manager’s encouragement, “as much as I put in is what I get out.”

He was offered various training courses and quickly learned that working in cyber security means going the extra mile to keep abreast of an ever-evolving industry. “I learned that if I want to excel I have to study, even after work, because every day it changes.”

Some of the first skills he learned were incident handling and alert triaging, along with digital forensics. “This teaches you how to understand and break down incidents,” he says, “how to read code and put together what’s going on. We have to be like detectives and it’s actually something that really can’t be taught in a book.

“You have to see it and apply your knowledge and critical thinking.”

It’s been a steep learning curve for Babaian as he had very little IT experience starting out. He describes it as starting from zero, and says the hardest thing for him was having to get across basic systems administration knowledge to really understand how networks and computers work.

It’s the sort of background most would cover in their first two years of training, before moving on to cybersecurity. “For me it was just head first,” he says. But he clearly loved the challenge. “Once I got into the routine of making it not just a job but a lifestyle, then it really picked up and I started to understand things in a different way.”

REPAIRING THE BREACH

In late 2021, Babaian learned the benefits of proactively looking for breaches, when he was part of a team that was able to identify and remediate a serious breach for a major organisation.

The manager of that team is one of the reasons Babaian doesn’t regret his decision to be full-time at work and only study in his free time. “My manager makes a very big effort to ensure all team members are on the same wavelength,” he says, adding that he doesn’t miss the social life university can provide, and not only because it has been so restricted by COVID over the duration of his course so far. “I really love the social life at AC3. We have a very good team, and we all get along. And I can also learn so much from my co-workers.”

He reiterates the value of education when asked about his future aspirations. “I’ve only been here for a year, I still have a decent amount to learn,” he says. “A year from now, I may start thinking ‘can I climb to a higher position, such as team lead?’ or potentially even go out to do my own thing on a smaller scale.”

In the meantime, he has some good advice for other graduates considering a similar pathway. “Learn your basic networking and systems administration skills first, because they’re really foundational. And it’ll save you so much time in the long run. I was learning about C and how it applies before I’d even learned about A and B!

“I’d also recommend for those thinking of joining that it’s not like a normal job. Security is 24/7. It’s always changing and can be stressful, but every day there is something different. That’s what I really enjoy the most. At AC3, I have found both mentors and a team that consistently encourages, supports and teaches me, providing so much opportunity to grow and learn great skills.”