Brian Halbach

What do you do?

I am currently in Minneapolis Minnesota, I work for a professional IT services company called 3KeyLogic and I am their Lead Security Engineer. I do a number of different IT security projects that range from security policy creation, security assessments, firewall and network upgrades, data loss and prevention solutions, and end user security training.

How did you get there?

I got to where I am by taking computer science courses and networking classes in high school; both of those classes gave me a well-rounded view of computers and how they communicate to each other, which led me to look into the security path. After high school I studied IT management at UW-Stout with a minor in computer science. During my time at UW-Stout I got a job a on campus in the technical services department where I did a combination of helpdesk, networking administration and server administration work. I also had a summer internship doing software development at Blackthorne Financial (now Blackthorne Capital Management). In my last summer before graduating from UW-Stout I worked for KC Computers in Whitewater; this was a great opportunity that led to me getting my first job out of college. Shortly after working at KC computers I got a job at Optum in their mergers and acquisitions department creating VPN tunnels and doing network migrations for large corporate mergers. During that time, I got my Cisco CCNA, and Cisco Cyber Ops certification; this led to me becoming the lead security engineer at 3KeyLogic. I then got my Cisco CCNA Security certification. I am now pursuing the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP) certification and should have them by the end of 2019. I also attended several security conferences such as Def Con and Derby Con that really taught me a lot about what really is. From this knowledge I have helped create online web apps to help companies become more secure.

What advice do you have for current computer science students?

Always be curious and keep trying new things. The world of computer science is large and there are a lot of different areas that you can go into. By always being curious and trying new things you might find out a solution to a problem that you would have never thought of or discover a new area of computer science that you like even more.

Contact information:

brian.halbach@3keylogic.com

Check out Brian on Nightline!

Posted December 31, 2018