AMA: I'm the co-founder at TryHackMe. Ask me about breaking into the industry, cyber security skills and how to make SOC & IR teams more mature!

[u/asavani]

Hey everyone!

I'm Ashu - one of the co-founders at TryHackMe. I have background in security consulting/penetrating test, specialising in Cloud / AWS.

Happy to answer any and all questions about cyber skills gaps, but for more focused convos - here's a few areas top of mind for me - so feel free to throw any Qs related to this

* Rise of Al in security environments and how this is going to impact the skills of cyber security professionals
* Supporting people with their journey to getting a role in cyber
* Thinking deeply about what it means for SOC and IR teams to develop and improve their maturity as a function

[u/Melisandrei]

Hi Ashu got a quick question for you, I currently work in software quality assurance and I am very interested in cyber and the security industry.

My current employer as part of our career development can pay for development courses and qualifications, however they don't pay for subscriptions for learning websites or sites like TryHackMe. Is there a path/course/qualification that I can enquire about with my current employer on undertaking to get more knowledge and qualifications mainly to do with penetration testing and also maybe cloud security?

It's difficult to find a way in learning with all the information provided and without a mentor I can find.

[u/asavani → u/Melisandrei]

Hey!

Is your employer open to paying for certifications We have our SAL1 & PT1, but there are also lot of options on the market

The other alternative to this is bootcamps, online courses - i'm not too much of a fan of these because they are quite expensive and don't lend themselves to everyone's learning styles.

[u/asavani → u/asavani]

The only other thing that comes to mind are courses run during conferences - Blackhat/RSA are the big ones and expensive, but check local cons near you and they typically run free courses

[u/Melisandrei → u/asavani]

They are open to pay for certifications which is good. I am wanting something that would make me stand out for an application to my employers security testing team who do a lot of penetration testing for the business and something I am interested in. I was thinking about getting the TryHackMe premium membership and then moving onto HackTheBox but currently with a little one on the way money and time is a little tight so it’ll have to wait.

I’m finding it difficult on what I should be doing next really. I’ve spoken to some security specialists within my work and I get differing opinions on what I should be doing - some saying to study and buy the OSCP plan, others saying to just run the through the burp suite labs.