Filling the Cybersecurity Talent Pipeline
It’s been widely reported that there is a global cybersecurity workforce shortage. Those of us working in the industry are seeing the tremendous growth in the industry firsthand and seeking ways to add to our pool of available talent. One such idea, the Secure the Future Academic Competition, has proven useful in identifying qualified, early-in-career individuals who have what it takes to work in this booming industry.
Developed in 2019, Secure the Future enables students who are currently enrolled in Palo Alto Networks’ cybersecurity curriculum at colleges and universities around the U.S. to participate in a four-phase competition to demonstrate their research, analytical, and presentation skills. Candidates select an industry sector and, over the course of four months, conduct in-depth research in order to identify potential security threats in their chosen industry and recommend an array of security solutions that leverage threat intelligence and a thorough understanding of business platforms.
The competition requires exceptional skills in time management, research, organization, problem-solving, and presentation, as students must complete independent study while completing a series of assignments and preparing a video and slide deck presentation, all outside of their regular school work. And at the end, the top three competitors receive cash prizes as well as internships and/or full-time employment at Palo Alto Networks.
At Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 and Threat Analysis Unit (TAU), we frequently seek interns for a few reasons. Interns often expose us to new concepts that are being taught at the university level that could enhance what we do. Most importantly, it provides us with a future job candidate who will have good foundational skills and may wish to join us full time when their formal university education ends.
Early this year, as I was looking to hire a summer intern for the TAU, a member of our University Recruiting team reached out to let me know about a young man named JR who had recently taken one of the top three spots in the Secure the Future competition who seemed like a good candidate for the internship. He told me that JR stood out both from an interpersonal skill perspective as well as technical capabilities — he could bring a lot to the table in terms of different ways to think about and visualize data. The TAU requires a very diverse and unique skill set: a combination of technical know-how as it pertains to malware analysis and threat hunting, along with an understanding of the business rationale behind what we’re hunting for, as well as geopolitical sensitivities that may be occurring in specific regions around the globe.
We conducted several interviews with prospective interns, and we decided pretty quickly that JR had an ideal skill set as an early-in-career candidate that I knew we could benefit from. He accepted the summer internship, and during those three months, he demonstrated a lot of valuable assets. Interpersonal skills are really important for our work — we have to not only be able to understand and convey sensitive and highly technical information but then we have to be able to explain it in writing clearly and effectively. What struck me about JR was his ability to speak and write very well. Additionally, we have to think analytically, to have a strong ability to reason, and form conclusions based on data and evidence.
A lot of the technical aspects of what we do can be taught, but those skills — interpersonal and analytical — in particular, need to be quite strong, and JR fits that mold really well. The Secure the Future competition, with its emphasis on research, analytical thinking, and clearly presenting information in a variety of mediums, only served to strengthen his abilities in those areas. It became a direct way for him to experience what’s involved in information security from a corporate perspective, and it placed him into our “hopper” of job candidates, which was beneficial for him and our team. In fact, he was such an asset as an intern that after the three months were over, we offered him a full-time position with the company.
For those who might be considering a career in cybersecurity, it’s clear that participating in the Secure the Future Academic Competition can provide you with an edge by honing crucial skills and introducing you to potential employers and experts in the field. For these reasons, it’s a worthwhile investment in your future.
Discovering My Path
Neel Kattumadam, Software Engineering Intern
It may sound odd coming from someone who just finished a software engineering internship, but when I graduated high school, I wanted to be a doctor. I was accepted into UT Austin, and once I started college, however, I quickly realized that becoming a doctor was a fantasy, because it wasn’t my love for medicine that made me want to pursue that career. As corny as it may sound, what drew me to medicine was helping people with their problems and finding solutions for them. And that applied to technology as well as to medicine.
I had already been taking computer science courses, so I decided to pursue a career in that field. Once I graduated from UT Austin in May 2019, I started looking into graduate programs, and I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon University’s Master of Science in information systems program, which I began last fall. I went into the program most interested in data science, but the more courses in software engineering that I took, the more I liked it.
So when it came time to start exploring internships for the coming summer, I applied to a host of computer science internships, including the Palo Alto Networks program. Its focus on software engineering was appealing to me, and over the course of this three-month program, I’ve decided that this is the career for me.
In general, my team was working on projects that, in several ways, allow us to customize our products to suit the customers’ needs and their unique work setups. My work in particular involved creating a best practices assessment. I came in after the sale had been made and the customer was learning how to best use the product. I love interacting with customers, helping solve their problems, and optimizing their products to improve the way they work, so this was exactly the kind of thing I set out to do!
It never felt like work to me. I never felt like it was a grind to work three or four hours on a project — instead, it was more like, “Oh cool, now I can learn more about this!” I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that with any other subject.
Going Remote
Of course, when I applied and was accepted for this internship, my expectation was that I would return home to the Bay Area from Austin, TX, and work at Palo Alto Networks’ headquarters. But the coronavirus changed everything, and in March I was told that my internship would be done remotely. I left school and moved home to Saratoga, CA, and I spent the three months of my internship working from home.
Surprisingly, I loved working remotely. I enjoyed being able to structure my own day rather than arriving at a designated time. I’m not exactly a morning person, and if I’d had to go to the office, I would have had to wake up early and then sit in traffic for 30 to 45 minutes just to be there on time. But because I was working remotely, I was able to adjust the schedule so that I was at my best — starting my day a little later in the morning and working a little later into the evening. Not only that but I enjoyed having flexibility in my work environment. Sometimes I worked at my desk, sometimes at the kitchen counter with my mom. Sometimes I worked straight through, and sometimes I took a break and watched the news with my family. I think this flexibility allowed me to stay fresh.
Of course, it wasn’t always easy. I think going to work in an office is definitely the best way to network. I only knew three or four interns in my class, and that may have been my fault, because I immediately started flooding myself with work, and I didn’t hop on as many Zoom events as I could have. The face-to-face connections you make with peers when you’re in a workplace are really valuable, so if there’s one drawback to working remotely, I’d say that was it.
However, even though I’ve been remote the entire time, Palo Alto Networks’ human resources and recruiting services are 100% better than any I’ve seen at any other company. I had done an internship the previous year with a large, established, very well-known company, and during that time I only spoke to the recruiter a couple of times and was invited to a couple of socials at bars, things like that. But even being entirely remote with Palo Alto Networks, this was hands-down a better experience for staying connected.
Almost every day, there were opportunities to socialize and connect with each other, to hear speakers share their ideas and experiences, and to learn about new technologies or ways to improve the work we were doing. We even played interactive games using Kahoot or other apps, and the prizes were incredible — an Apple watch, gift cards to Amazon, and more. Gestures like this demonstrate that the company’s doing well, which is reassuring, but also that interns are worth that level of investment. There are numerous small groups that we were part of as well, and in my group, the Global Customer Support group, there was a team of about 15 interns who met every week to share common interests, compare experiences, or ask advice.
In fact, my internship experience was so positive that my manager was able to get approval to extend my internship, giving me the ability to work for Palo Alto Networks part time while I continue school. I would highly recommend this experience, both for the tremendous learning and professional experience you’ll get as well as for the connections you’ll make along the way.
Culture of Empowerment
Since I was a kid, when my parents gave me a MacBook, I’ve been interested in technology. From there, I fell down the rabbit hole — I knew right away I wanted to grow up to have a career in technology. I started out learning things like PhotoShop, then progressed to programming in high school, and now I’m in my last semester of my bachelor’s program in computer science at UT Austin. Once I got to college, I started looking for high-quality internships to prepare myself for the professional world of software engineering.
Cybersecurity always interested me, but I didn’t really see an overlap between it and software engineering until I found the Palo Alto Networks internship program. The program was three months long, from May through August, and my work was in NetDevOps, which is the intersection of networking and development operations that involves automating network design and changes.
Since I joined the team in May, I’ve been working with Panorama, our firewall management product, to create tooling for our firewalls in order to increase the transparency of how they’re managed. I write many supporting microservices and libraries in Python to interact with services like Okta, ServiceNow, Panorama, and databases. I’ve also automated some of this work through Jenkins or CI/CD pipelines.
Being in the midst of a pandemic, there was no other choice but to do the internship remotely. Fortunately, I was still able to do everything I needed to do from my home here in Prescott, Arizona. It was definitely a challenge, particularly in the beginning. I wasn’t sure how to get the support I needed when it seemed like everyone was so busy, and I couldn’t just walk over to ask for their assistance. That first week mostly involved ramping up, setting up my computer; figuring out how the team works and who provides approvals at what stages; and learning the goals and objectives. But soon I figured out how to navigate those issues and get the help I need, and it was really rewarding to be independent and find answers on my own. I also found that I really enjoyed the flexibility of working remotely. I would say one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned through my internship is how to work autonomously — to find or develop solutions on my own. I think that will serve me well in my career.
I started learning right away, and it hasn’t stopped. The interns here are constantly getting new projects to work on, and you have to learn quickly — though I find I’ve really enjoyed that fast pace. I also had previous internship experience, so I was familiar with having challenges thrown at me and having to push through my uncertainty and address them. Plus, speaking professionally, having that experience prepares me more for my career and will show future employers that I can work independently, think on my feet, and operate in a deadline-oriented environment.
Another thing I’ve learned that I have found tremendously valuable is proficiency in Python. Prior to this internship, I was self-taught but I’m very idiomatic in it now. Knowing it well and writing in it concisely is an important skill for the future.
Socializing and connecting with other interns as well as Palo Alto Networks employees has been a bit harder, obviously, because of the nature of remote work, but University Recruiting has put on some fun virtual events that have helped with that.
Even though I’ve been working on my own from home, I’ve definitely been treated as a member of the team, and my work has been meaningful and important. Just because I’m an intern doesn’t mean that I’ve been given menial tasks. In fact, a lot of my code has been used in important projects. In some companies, interns work in silos, removed from the teams, but I’ve been given assignments that were time-sensitive, where I’ve helped someone who was relying on my work to ship a big project. It was a little intimidating at first, but it was also really exciting to be contributing in a real way.
There’s a culture of empowerment here, and we’re all empowered to take on responsibilities and find solutions. Interns are encouraged to participate and complete projects with real stakes attached to them — not just meaningless, fluff jobs — and my code actually makes a difference. For me, that makes this the gold standard of internships.
And that leads me to another valuable lesson I’ve learned along the way, which is taking ownership of projects. I haven’t shied away from opportunities to learn and push myself. For example, our team uses remote contractors, and there have been times when they needed help clarifying spots in the code that were unclear or buggy, so I had to jump in and take ownership — identify places that needed improvement and take it upon myself to make those changes. In fact, I was strong enough in designing microservices that I got the opportunity to mentor another intern in that. So I’ve had a chance to both lead and follow during these three months, which doesn’t often happen during internships.
We’re exposed to people at all levels of the organization. We had an organization-wide intern fest, and we were on a call with high-level executives and the CIO, and I’ve even had some small group sessions with him. It’s really cool, and I’d never expected that from a big tech company like this.
Prior to this experience, I didn’t know what went into next-gen firewalls, and I honestly didn’t know much about what Palo Alto Networks did. But it’s been rewarding to see how all these things fit together, and I like that we’re doing something important — we’re securing companies, which is really exciting.
If I were to offer some advice to future interns, it would be this: Learn as much as you can, and don’t be afraid to ask questions, especially early on. It might seem like you’re being a nuisance, but no one expects you to know everything right away. Come in with a positive attitude, be open, and expect to learn a lot.
Crafting a Communications Career
Maggie Ballard, Corporate Communications Intern
When I applied to be an intern on the Palo Alto Networks Corporate Communications team, I never imagined I’d be reporting to work from my bedroom for the summer.
I was in the beginning of my sophomore year at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, working on a bachelor’s degree in public relations when I started exploring internship opportunities that would provide me with some communications experience. When I came across a listing for Palo Alto Networks’ internship program, it immediately struck me as a strong program. It was well-structured in terms of the support offered to interns. I would experience a diverse range of both internal and external communications. And the access to support from fellow interns and other employees at different levels within the company as well as the company’s role in the booming cybersecurity industry were appealing. Although I had not specifically been seeking a role in cybersecurity or even in technology, I loved the idea of working alongside talented people in a wide range of subjects, from software engineering to threat intelligence or finance, that I could learn from.
Little did I know that “alongside” would have a vastly different meaning from what I’d expected. After a great interview, I was accepted into the three-month internship program at Palo Alto Networks’ headquarters in Santa Clara, California, and planned to start in May 2020. But on April 8, I got the not-so-unexpected call informing me that my internship would be conducted remotely from my home in Danville, CA. By that time, the pandemic had driven everyone to work from home, so I wasn’t surprised, but I was a little bummed that the experience would be different from what I’d imagined. I was nervous about what to expect for the next three months. This was going to be my first “big-girl” job, and I wondered whether I’d be able to get the same value out of the experience in a virtual setting as I would in the office.
Fortunately, my fears were put to rest pretty quickly. Everyone was so great about communicating that I never felt out of the loop. The communications team made a huge effort to include me. In fact, I often felt like I wasn’t an intern at all — I was a contributing full-time member of the team. People were super open to talking to me, both on my team and from other teams around the organization, so I was able to get to know a lot of people who could help me in my career path moving forward. Despite being unable to make connections in person, I was still able to get a sense of the company atmosphere.
Not only that but I was given a wide range of work opportunities in the PR realm — I would help with drafting story pitches, developing media lists, creating briefing documents for Palo Alto Networks spokespeople, talking to reporters, and even writing internal communications. So in addition to the PR-related work, I got a new sense of how journalists work, which was not only interesting but also will be useful as I move forward in my PR career. I had the opportunity to work with the executive team, coordinating their schedules for various roundtable events for the company, which provided me with great experience on the corporate side. One of my favorite tasks was working on our daily news briefings every morning. I worked each morning with one of my managers to draft an email summing up the biggest news of the day in cybersecurity or our company and send it to roughly 75 employees.
In short, the summer was nothing short of wonderful. I am grateful to have been part of such an amazing company this summer — thanks to the efforts made to keep the internship program running in the midst of a pandemic.
A Virtual Internship with Real Benefits
Jessica McQuade, University Programs Specialist
It used to be that summer interns spent their days doing filing, making copies, and following people around to watch what they did. But those days are gone. Today’s interns are looking for true, professional, resume-worthy experience and connections that give them a leg up in their careers.
Palo Alto Networks takes this goal to heart, and its University Relations (UR) team has developed a distinctive internship program that — even in the midst of a pandemic that forced all interns to work remotely — is ranked among the top 100 in the nation for 2020 for the quality of experiences given to interns, its emphasis on diversity and inclusion, and its innovative approach to remote work.
“Real” Work
The UR team creates a valuable, real-world professional experience for interns. While, of course, interns can expect several weeks of onboarding and ramping up their knowledge about their jobs, the philosophy at Palo Alto Networks is that one learns by doing. After all, an internship is supposed to prepare you for the next phase of your career, so it’s important to gain true professional experience.
“The reason I chose Palo Alto was that, during my conversation with the manager, he made it very clear that, at least on his team, he was definitely going to give the intern real work,” says Karen Jiang, a rising senior at Cornell University in New York who interned during summer 2020. “What I’ve noticed about a lot of internships is that, while the work is legitimate, it was always kind of isolated from the rest of the team, just so the intern doesn’t ‘break’ anything. But my manager made it clear, this would be real work. That meant I’d also be in the zone for breaking other people’s code or other people potentially breaking my work, which is really interesting because that’s what real developers and engineers do..”
In fact, interns frequently express pleasant surprise about the level of work experience they gain through the program. Sabrina Liu, a senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and a summer 2020 software engineer intern, says, “It’s really mind-blowing that they let interns get involved with this kind of thing and take ownership of something that impacts thousands of customers.”
Keeping Diversity and Inclusion Top of Mind
Ensuring that we grow a cybersecurity workforce that includes a diverse range of backgrounds, talent, experiences, and ideas is a priority for our internship program. This is why our University Relations team actively reaches out to Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other diversity-focused institutions. During orientation, the team highlights Palo Alto Networks’ Employee Network Groups to encourage interns to get involved with groups they are allied with or interested in.
And as the nation turns increasing attention to the Black Lives Matter movement and a growing awareness of and interest in understanding the Black experience, we’ve created opportunities for deeper learning and connection, including spaces in which to have conversations about media representations of this subject as well as webinars with diverse speakers.
Shifting Gears
COVID-19 threw a wrench into plans for summer 2020 for the interns, many of whom had actually relocated to California to be near headquarters. Suddenly, gone were the dreams of water cooler conversations, sit-downs with managers, and happy hours with colleagues at local gathering spots.
Instead, the UR team reimagined an internship program that is both collegial and distant. Laptops were sent to each intern, along with a $200 stipend for any needed home office equipment. The onboarding plan included virtual learning paths that helped interns get up to speed quickly on Palo Alto Networks’ policies and expectations, guest speakers from various parts of the company, and an introduction to the Early in Career Employee Group, a small employee network of young professionals new to their careers who can share insights, form relationships, and ask questions, no matter how mundane.
Every intern was paired with a buddy from their team to act as a coach, motivator, and advisor. A professional development speaker series allowed interns to hear directly from professionals about tips for charting their career paths.
And just because they were working remotely doesn’t mean the interns weren’t able to have fun and socialize. The UR team got creative in planning a number of virtual events, from Bingo and 20 Questions to Zoom background competitions and much more.
As a result of these efforts, the interns say that not only did they feel included and engaged from day one, but they also warmed up quite easily to the remote work, with its lack of traffic and long commute times, and ability to carve out their own schedules.
Another unexpected benefit was how virtual interactions seemed to level the playing field for shy interns. “I’m a huge introvert,” says Karen. “I get very nervous meeting new people and talking to them — especially in the beginning of an internship, where you might need a lot of help and hand-holding. So with this experience being remote, it was actually a little easier for me to approach new people than it might have been in person. Sending a message on Slack isn’t all that different from chatting to anyone online; titles are erased. So if someone says, ‘You need to go talk to the director,’ you don’t see the word ‘director’ next to their name in Slack. It makes them seem more approachable.”
Ultimately, our goal for interns is to ensure them every opportunity to learn and grow in their chosen subject areas, but also to gain a deeper understanding of themselves as professionals and colleagues, as well as the cybersecurity industry and their place in it. We are so proud to be among the nation’s Top 100 Internship Programs, and we invite you to discover its many benefits for yourself!