Introduction

A new website, a quick introduction.

My name is Elizabeth Beacom, I am an IT Manager in the area of Infrastructure and Security with nearly 20 years of experience. My experience spans from software development to system and network administration, with various industries from construction to education.

My passion has always been cybersecurity, as my initial interest in computers was that of a hacker. I learned early on, on my own, how computers worked and also how they could break. I got in trouble in middle school for learning how the security controls on the lab computers could be bypassed and disabled, and then showing some friends who promptly broke the OS install on the computers and pointed their fingers at me.

I obtained my Bachelors Degree in Information Technology (BTech) from Kwantlen Polytechnic in 2010 and began working as a software developer in 2005 during a first term co-op placement. Utilizing my depth of skills I began to expand into a DevOps role and worked on creating continuous integration in a agile software development lifecycle while continuing to focus on security by establishing automated unit testing of code and routine audits of code.

As my DevOps role expanded I began to shift into a more system administration role, this continued until I moved to my current employer. Starting as system administrator with my current employer I found a large gap in their networking needs which had me shift laterally into a network administration role. Early on with my current employer I developed a segmented network design improving routing and basic security. This eventually a large scale project which moved the 45 sites off numerous Site-To-Site VPN tunnels and on to a MPLS network. During the large project we also replaced the existing firewalls and began to developer stronger security policies on them to better log, filter and control traffic passing through the network. This lead to my current role and back to the direct core of my passion in cyber security and information security.

This blog is mostly a reflection of my many years of work and education. As I started dive back into the depths of cyber security I found myself wanting to give back to the community and share my knowledge. I also saw it as an opportunity to document my own growth and create some self accountability as I work towards my OSCP, CISSP and potentially a MBA down the road.