Cyber Security
Meet the twins in cybersecurity: Empowering Gen Z and addressing talent shortage.
M
eet twins, Noushin Shabab and Negar Shabab. They grew up attending a special school for whiz kids and are now slowly making their mark in education and the industry to bridge the country’s alarming cybersecurity talent shortage. It all started when Jacqui Loustau, founder of the Australian Women in Security Network (AWSN) met Noushin Shabab, member of Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) at Kaspersky Lab, during a cybersecurity panel in Melbourne last year. Several meet ups later, Loustau together with co-founders of the AWSN Cadets, Elizabeth Bonny and Diane Loi, collaborated with the twins on workshops for the AWSN female cadets. The Shabab’s were the first mentors to provide technical workshops and mentorship which aims to boost their cadets confidence and equip them with the necessary tools before embarking on a profession in cybersecurity. Today, this initiative has grown to 60 girls from different universities across Victoria. Recently, the pair also collaborated with Cyber Security
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Challenge Australia (CySCA). Launched in 2012, CySCA is Australia’s only national hacking competition, Run by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the competition targets students in higher education to unearth the next generation of cyber security talent. They worked closely with Dr. Fengling, who leads RMIT’s involvement with the challenge to teach a custom, tailor made syllabus with a niche in reverse engineering for the competition participants. Dr. Fengling Han says, “Cyber-attack is considered as one of the threats to business growth globally. To address the cyber security skill shortages in Australia, CySCA aims at promoting cyber security as a career option by highlight the key skills required in cyber security practice. Penetration testing and network forensics are the main topics in CySCA. RMIT Computer Science students show strong interest in competing in the CySCA this year. We have a record of 5 teams (4 students in one team) registered, include a team from first year students, and an all-female team. They have seen so many internship placement and job positions on
