CyberWire Daily - Malek Ben Salem: Taking those challenges. [R&D] [Career Notes]

Episode Date: November 15, 2020

Americas Security R&D Lead for Accenture Malek Ben Salem shares how she pivoted from her love of math and background in electrical engineering to a career in cybersecurity R&D. Malek talks about her interest in astrophysics as a young girl, and how her affinity for math and taking on challenges lead her to a degree in electrical engineering. She grew her career using math for data mining and forecasting eventually pursuing a masters and PhD in computer science where she shifted her focus to cybersecurity. Malek now develops and applies new AI techniques to solve security problems at Accenture. We thank Malek for sharing her story with us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Cyber Wire Network, powered by N2K. and VPNs, yet breaches continue to rise by an 18% year-over-year increase in ransomware attacks and a $75 million record payout in 2024. These traditional security tools expand your attack surface with public-facing IPs that are exploited by bad actors more easily than ever with AI tools. It's time to rethink your security. Thank you. Learn more at zscaler.com slash security. My name is Melek Bensalem, and I am the America's Security R&D Lead for Accenture. As a child, I don't know, I was, I guess, fascinated by astrophysics. I was amazed by the NASA discoveries, right, of new planets and, you know, stars and learning about the black holes. And so that was something I really wanted to pursue. But I think the driver is my love for math.

After high school, I went to an engineering school. I had basically the choice of selecting what type of engineering degree I wanted to do. And I've gone for electrical engineering. What I heard is that it was, you know, very challenging and difficult. And that was basically why I've chosen it. Again, I think just, you know, solving something that is, that other people find challenging was just basically a motivator for me. I really wanted to take those

challenges. So right after I graduated, I got an offer from IBM. So I worked for their server group at the time, also using math, not related to electrical engineering though, but more using math for data mining and forecasting and segmentation of their customers, whether they were hardware customers or software DB2 customers. And then I worked in their microelectronics division where my electrical engineering background was helpful. So we worked in the semiconductor fab, which was the first fully automated semiconductor fab in the world. The journey with IBM took about nine years, but in parallel, I decided that I wanted to pursue my graduate degree in computer science this time.

And so as I was working for IBM, I started taking classes at Columbia University for my master's degree in computer science. There, I met a professor who was using data mining and machine learning to study or to solve, you know, intrusion detection problem. So I've worked with him on a research project. And then I continued with him later on when I pursued my PhD research. And that was basically the pivot to cybersecurity. I'm developing and applying new AI techniques to solve security problems. We cannot have a digital economy without having trust in that economy. And the trust relies on ensuring that data is secure,

that our communications are secure. So working on something that important is very exciting. So working on something that important is very exciting. The fact that I work in R&D at a company like Accenture, which is a very large company, but also where I work on an R&D project from concept all the way to full solution that my colleagues, my consultant colleagues at Accenture can take to the market to our clients, feels like working for a startup company while working for a large company, while having the, you know, the luxury, if you will, or the safety of working for a large corporation. And I'm doing that over and over.

large corporation. And I'm doing that over and over. So every few years, basically, I'm bringing some new solution to the market. And that is very exciting. Hey everybody, Dave here. Have you ever wondered where your personal information is lurking online? Like many of you, I was concerned about my data being sold by data brokers. So I decided to try Delete.me. I have to say, Delete.me is a game changer. Within days of signing up, they started removing my personal information from hundreds of data brokers. I finally have peace of mind knowing my data privacy is protected.

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