Tell us about your role.
Over the past year, my concentration has mainly been in the cyber security domain. I’ve worked on projects concerning security aspects of mobile applications.
I’m currently researching security aspects of a popular social networking android application.
I am aiming to reverse engineer the application and analyse its implementation details and evaluate any security holes that may become apparent.
Through my research I intend to determine if the app manages user’s sensitive data securely when it is stored on the device and communicated back to the servers, and assess if it can be subjected to malicious attacks.
In my opinion, the following characteristics/skills would come in very handy:
My team members are new grads like me, so it feels very much like working on a uni project. The senior staff are also very approachable. Overall, the culture is quite relaxed.
What do you like most about your role?
We get to work with the best phones available on the market to carry out our research and I love working in the cyber security domain.
My moment of shining glory was when I got to present the results of my independent research to the client.
What's your background?
I have a degree in Bachelors of Science (Software Systems) and Masters of Engineering (Software with Business)
Before starting my Masters degree, I did a summer internship at a Melbourne based legal firm which was planning on starting an IT business unit. My internship was mainly centred on developing iOS applications.
In the penultimate year of my Masters degree, I got an opportunity to participate in an India-based global internship program at an organisation called Infosys. In this internship I got to assist a computer research scientist, who at the time was researching Contextual Recommendation Systems.
Words of advice
The recruitment process was quite straight-forward. The process involved:
Words of advice if you are thinking of joining Leidos:
At uni, pick elective subjects that lead to a specialisation in one domain instead of doing a bit of everything. Be very proactive in industry events to increase your ‘visibility’ to recruiters.
I would tell my younger self to gain more practical experience (through internships or hackathons) before joining the workforce.