Who are you and why did you choose NCC Group?
I'm Katy Winterborn and I am a Senior Security Consultant based out of our Cheltenham office.
A couple years ago, I was contacted by the recruitment team asking if I'd be interested in an opportunity here at NCC Group. I came in for an interview, decided to take the job and haven’t looked back!
What does a typical day look like for you?
On a day to day basis, I am an ethical hacker. I travel to client sites or work from the office and try to hack into either their websites, their networks or computers... It’s my job to find all the holes I can, so we can tell our clients how to fix them, which means when the bad guys try to get in, they can’t!
What inspired you to become a security consultant?
Being able to break into things was of interest to me from a very young age. When I was growing up, I really wanted to be a spy, so I had all the toys. From a spy Filofax to the invisible ink to the code books – I had the full works! (laughs) Then, when I grew up, I realised that this was actually a potential job option.
It was university where I was introduced to the world of security, we were given a task of coming up with ways to break into the computer science building and it was such good fun!
Then, after university when I was looking at the jobs market, Security Consulting just seemed like the perfect fit.
What piece of advice would you give to an aspiring Security Consultant?
One of the things a lot of people think with a career in cyber security, is that if they don't have a first-class degree in computer science, then it's absolutely impossible for them to get involved -that is completely rubbish.
A lot of us have come into the industry in different ways, so my advice if you're interested, is just give it a go and play around with computers and look into how to ethically hack things. Do be aware that not everyone understands that ethical hackers are just that – ethical.
There are so many resources available on the internet, just try it out and have fun because it's such a great job!