Why I became a cybersecurity expert

BURCU YARAR

by Burcu Yarar, Application Security Team Lead at VakıfBank

Life is an equation with many unknowns. I have always had a passion for equations with many unknowns. This passion makes me feel great, and one of my wishes is for things to stay that way. Cybersecurity is also a wonderful equation in which there are many unknowns. I am on the offensive side of this equation.

My story is as follows. I first saw informatics as a profession, and decided to choose it, in 2007 when I enrolled in a vocational high school. The school I chose was the best in its field at that time. Its goal was to produce qualified personnel for the sector. In line with this goal, it was a highly disciplined learning institution.

After experiencing informatics in high school, I was sure I wanted to work in the field, so I continued my undergraduate education in informatics. After graduating I knew what roles in informatics I did not want. My choices have always been shaped by what I did not want rather than what I wanted. I did not want to be a software developer. However, because I had studied informatics in high school and university,

I knew many programming languages. So, I found myself in cybersecurity, which, at the time, was a developing and little known industry.

You can think of cybersecurity as having emerged to reduce the risks brought on by new technologies, and by organisations producing much more data and using much more complex programs as they tried to adapt to these new technologies. Most importantly, these organisations are operating in a very dangerous environment such as the internet. For all these reasons, organisations need cybersecurity experts to ensure their information security and to be aware of the threats they face.

In cybersecurity, my adventure started as a volunteer intern at one of the leading consulting companies in the sector. Then I started my professional life. Seeing the work done, touching living systems and being in environments where I could apply what I had learnt piqued my curiosity every day. In addition, the low number of trained personnel in the sector meant that, by taking the right steps, my career developed rapidly.

Then, I quit consulting and entered the corporate world to experience cybersecurity from different perspectives. That process continues: I have had many different institutional experiences. With my passion for learning, some things never seem to end.

In conclusion, I would like anyone who wants to improve themselves and progress in cybersecurity to achieve their goals. It is still a developing sector with a significant shortage of trained personnel. If you have a little curiosity and a lot of determination, I will see you in cybersecurity.

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