After ten weeks of intensive work, practical tasks, and mentorship, another cycle of the PULSEC CyberLab professional internship program, designed for students who want to take their first steps into the world of cybersecurity, has been successfully completed.
This format once again confirmed the great interest of young people in this field. The call for applications for PULSEC CyberLab received as many as 170 submissions, which demonstrates a strong desire for professional development in cybersecurity, as well as the need for programs that provide practical experience.
Ten weeks of work on real-world scenarios
PULSEC CyberLab is designed as a mentored program that combines theoretical lectures and practical work through real-world cybersecurity scenarios. During the internship, participants worked three times a week for four hours, with the support of experienced engineers and experts from PULSEC.
The program was divided into four logical units.
The first part was dedicated to computer networks and the fundamentals of network infrastructure, after which students, through the system administration segment, worked on implementing key services such as DNS, mail systems, and PKI infrastructure.
After setting up the basic environment, participants were tasked with building and administering the infrastructure of an imaginary company consisting of a central data center and multiple remote locations that needed to communicate securely with each other.
The continuation of the program focused on implementing security solutions. Students worked with technologies from leading global manufacturers, including Palo Alto, Check Point, and Cisco solutions, through which they learned how to protect networks, servers, endpoints, mail security, and web applications.
A special part of the program was dedicated to modern protection concepts such as XDR platforms, endpoint security, cloud and on-premise mail system protection, as well as web application firewall technologies.
From theory to practice
One of the greatest values of the PULSEC CyberLab program is working with real equipment and technologies that are used daily in business environments.
“Academic education provides students with a broad foundation, but they very rarely have the opportunity to work on real systems and infrastructure environments. That’s why we created a special laboratory environment that is realistic enough for students to gain experience working on complex systems, while being completely separate from the company’s production systems,” emphasizes Ivan Barać, program mentor.
In addition to technical skills, participants also worked on developing teamwork, presentation skills, and technical documentation during the program. At the beginning of the internship, they were divided into teams and worked together until the end of the program to solve tasks, present solutions, and document implemented technologies.
Final exercise as a simulation of a real project
The culmination of the program was the final practical exercise during which participants were tasked with independently setting up and securing a complete IT infrastructure.
The exercise involved multiple locations and multiple levels of complexity. As they successfully completed individual phases, students received new, more complex tasks until they managed to build and secure the entire environment.
An additional challenge was vulnerability scanning of the infrastructure they had built themselves. After scanning, participants received reports with identified vulnerabilities and were tasked with improving system security based on the findings.
“The greatest benefit of the program is that after completing the internship, students understand how a complex enterprise infrastructure functions and how it is protected. In a way, this represents their first real entry into the world of cybersecurity,” states Barać.
An experience that changes the perspective on cybersecurity
Among this year’s participants was Pavle Baltić, a fourth-year student at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, who emphasizes that practical work allowed him to view theoretical knowledge from a completely different perspective.
“At university, we learn theory and understand basic concepts, but it’s only through working on real infrastructure that it becomes clear how everything functions in practice. I found the network part particularly interesting, as we could see how a company’s network is designed and organized, and how data truly flows through the system,” says Pavle.
As he points out, the program also changed the way he views the field of cybersecurity itself.
“Before CyberLab, I imagined cybersecurity as something out of movies: an attack, red alarms flashing, and urgent reactions. During the program, I realized that the story is much broader, that behind everything there is much more planning, organization, analysis, and systematic work.”
Investing in future experts
One of the goals of the PULSEC CyberLab program is to introduce students to the real challenges they will face in their professional careers and to prepare them for work in an industry that faces a constant increase in the need for skilled personnel.
“We wanted to awaken students’ interest and passion for cybersecurity, but also to convey to them the way of working in a professional environment: how projects function, how to collaborate in a team, and how to approach problem-solving. We believe that the greatest success of this year’s program is precisely that the participants transformed from individuals into a team. This year’s team was not only composed of students from Serbia. Among the participants were also three students from Banja Luka, who followed the program online. We met them through the former SOC Academy program, and CyberLab represented the next step in their professional development,” concludes Barać.
The great interest in PULSEC CyberLab and the results achieved by the participants during the program confirm that there is significant potential among young people for career development in cybersecurity. Through such initiatives, PULSEC continues to invest in the development of future experts and the strengthening of the domestic cybersecurity community.
Do you also want to gain experience working with real technologies and see what cybersecurity looks like in practice?
We are already preparing the next cycle of the PULSEC CyberLab program. If you want to be among the first to know when applications open, leave your details via the form and we will contact you when the application process begins.
