Through our Path to Progression blog series, we’re sharing colleague stories about how they’ve developed, changed and grown their career within NCC Group.
For the fourth in our series, our Talent Attraction team spoke to Ariela Lopez to hear more about her journey so far and how she made the move from Trainee to Fraud Analyst at NCC Group’s Dutch company, Fox-IT.
What was your first role with Fox-IT?
I initially joined Fox-IT as a Trainee, which was the beginning of a new adventure for me. The idea of working in cyber security only came to me during my final year of my study, International Business and Languages. For my thesis internship, I completed a research on Talent Acquisition for cyber security professionals and this gave me the opportunity to meet all kinds of professionals working in this sector. It truly inspired me to move into the industry myself.
When I realized cyber security was my passion, I started to read, listen to podcasts, watch videos and just to throw myself into the depths of this great community. After joining a “women in cyber security” group, I met some awesome people at Fox-IT who told me about the Traineeship at the company. I found it extremely exciting, as I knew all the companies in cyber space from a recruitment point of view, and Fox-IT was really “the dream” for me. After successfully completing the traineeship assessment day, for which I was very nervous, I could not believe my luck, only then I felt “this is actually happening.”
The Traineeship involved working in several departments and my first role was data analysis for Finance and Sales, which was at the time much more in line with my previous studies. Then I also joined the Security Operations Centre (SOC), gained experience with the Red Team and finally the financial anti-fraud management division, DetACT, to gain (more) technical experience.
What is your current role?
I’m a Fraud Analyst at DetACT™. This part of Fox-IT offers a fraud management solution, delivering advanced fraud detection, analytics, and visibility capabilities for financial institutions. We do this by working closely together with the fraud analysts from the banks and, among other things, build detection rules based on fraud investigations and behavior analysis. I found my place in a super team here, it was the last assignment for my traineeship, but we had decided to continue working together after my traineeship was complete.
What was your process of applying for an internal role?
Although my initial Traineeship wasn’t over, 3 months in the analysis team, DetACT™ already felt like where I fit in the team and was an area I wanted to grow in. When a position became available internally, the Team Lead approached me to discuss the opportunity to become part of the team permanently.
Where do you see yourself in the future at Fox-IT?
For now, I love the cat-mouse game of fraud research, it is remarkably diverse, so I want to develop my skills further in this space. But I also love presenting and raising awareness about fraud and cyber-security, especially amongst a younger generation, so perhaps I will grow into a function that combines these things.
If you want to get started in security, I’d say it doesn’t matter where you are now: “just go for it”. Develop security awareness for yourself, learn online, read, listen to podcasts, watch videos and don’t give up!
Thank you for taking the time to read Ariela’s story. We are really excited to see what she will do next with us!