Our Community
Our community is comprised of over 4,000 members who’ve traveled in your shoes. Join your fellow peers in a community built to serve your fellow veterans and provide support and advice on transitioning into cybersecurity. VetSec provides a safe environment to support you through your military transition, navigating the benefits you’ve earned through your sacrifice, learning the disciplines/domains of cybersecurity, and setting you up for success in the industry.
No matter what the challenge is that you’re facing, our community is always here to support. There are channels ranging from technical topics like programming, digital forensics and incident response, and industrial controls systems to channels supporting the military and job transition on navigating the benefits through the VA, resume and interview assistance, to our own dedicated mental health support channel.
Join in our Capture the Flag channel and begin with hands-on learning. We have teams in Hack The Box and TryHackMe where we show our teamwork, bring out the fun in the community, and get together to tackle some challenging exercies. All of our community activity happens in our online forum where people who have already walked in your shoes are sharing their experiences, supporting each other, and helping to maintain that close-knit family you had during your service.
While our community is excellent at answering questions in individual channels, we also offer a path for a longer-term relationship one-on-one with volunteer members that are already established in cybersecurity. Our mentorship program pairs members who request guidance, be it technical, networking, or navigating their military transition, with members who have volunteered to donate their time and expertise to facilitate an ongoing relationship with newer members. Requests for mentorship (or to become a mentor) can be submitted inside of our community platform.
Employment Resources
One of the best things about our community of over 3,000 people working in cybersecurity is the professional network and the constant sharing of opportunities. Within our community platform is our #jobs-listing and #jobs-discussion panel, where you can discuss the ins and outs of any job you’re looking at and find jobs posted by your peers, all looking to help get you into the industry.
By helping to put our members in direct contact with the industry, provide them with numerous educational opportunities to gain hands-on skills and theoretical knowledge, as well as improve their resumes and interview skills, we are able to support more veterans and get them into lasting employment.
A common challenge military veterans face is understanding how to translate their skills from their military service into applicable traits that the cybersecurity industry is looking for and then articulate them on a resume. Join our #resume-help channel, read our pinned posts, and take our course in our Learning section of the website on resume building.
VetSec can help build and fine-tune your resume through the use of our peer review service. Share your resume in our community and let us help to ensure you’ll get the direct interaction you need with hiring managers and employers.
We are now directly engaging on your behalf with hiring managers and employers who understand the benefits of hiring veterans, and appreciate the value that veterans will bring to their companies. Those who are approved by us and wish to hire our members are able to post their opportunities on our Jobs Board.
This is a service provided free of charge to both our members and the hiring company to help remove any barriers to gaining our talent.
We work with industry leaders to secure spots at workshops and conferences around the country for our members to attend. Serving as both educational and a great networking opportunity, these events help get the word out to the industry about VetSec and our mission, and help the member network and gain useful indutry awareness – in short, a win win.
Our Training
Immersive Labs - Veterans Digital Cyber Academy
Through our partnership with Immersive Labs, we provide access to the only Veteran Digital Cyber Academy in the United States. This is a free version of Immersive Labs that is available exclusively to our transitioning members. Featuring over 250 labs across all domains of cybersecurity, the Veteran Digital Cyber Academy provides an amazing opportunity to get hands on experience in all realms of cyber and decide how best to start their cybersecurity careers.
CompTIA Authorized Academic Partner
CompTIA’s Academic Partner Program prepares today’s students to be employable in our global digital economy. Through our partnership, we provide tools and resources to help veterans learn fundamental digital skills, IT and Cybersecurity. As an approved CompTIA Academic Partner, VetSec receives discounted academic pricing for all of our members on all CompTIA learning resources and exam vouches. Additionally, all students can access the Interactive Career Pathway Planning Tool, which is a “dynamic resource that provides students with details on how certifications can help develop a variety of IT career pathways and includes median national salary data and employment forecasts for specific IT job roles.”
Fortinet Network Security Academy
VetSec is proud to partner with Fortinet to deliver the Fortinet Network Security Expert (NSE) training and all certifications FREE for ALL VetSec members. This program consists of:
NSE 1, Information Security Awareness, explores real cyber threats that pose a danger and offers measures you can take to protect yourself and others from harm. It also explains basic terms and concepts that will help you to better understand cybersecurity.
NSE 2, The Evolution of Cybersecurity, teaches students about the types of security products that have been created by security vendors to address security problems faced by networks and organizations.
NSE 3, Fortinet Product Awareness, is the final course for the Fortinet NSE Associate designation, and introduces the student to the key Fortinet products and describes the cybersecurity problems that they solve.
NSE 4 will award the designation of Network Security Professional upon completion of this course and passing the test. This shows your ability to configure, install, and manage the day-to-day operation of a FortiGate device to support specific network security policies. This training is composed of two courses: FortiGate Security and FortiGate Infrastructure.
NSE 5: Fortinet’s Network Security Analyst designation is comprised of four courses, and recognizes your ability to implement analytics and network security management using Fortinet security devices. This curriculum is recommended for professionals who require the knowledge to centrally manage, analyze, and report on Fortinet security devices.
NSE 6: Completion of this curriculum awards the Network Security Specialist designation, recognizing your skills with comprehensive products beyond the firewall. This is recognized after you achieve at least four Fortinet Specialist certificates on Fortinet products. This curriculum offers nine courses and is recommended for network and security professionals who are involved in managing and supporting specific Fortinet security products.
NSE 7 identifies your advanced skills in deploying, administering, and troubleshooting Fortinet security solutions. This curriculum offers five courses for network and security professionals involved in advanced administration and support of security infrastructures using Fortinet solutions.
Center for Cyber Security Training
VetSec is proud to partner with the Center for Cyber Security Training to provide more advanced trainings to our members already established in cyber security. Descriptions of the courses are below:
The “Bootcamp” focuses on stack-based exploitation, now 100% Windows 10 based which contains intro to x64 stack-based exploitation. During this hardcore, hands-on training, you will learn how to write reliable exploits for the Win32 platform, starting with the basics of stack buffer overflows and exploit writing. Gain a solid understanding of the very latest in Win32 (stack-based) exploitation and memory protection bypass techniques.
In-Person – 4 Days
This “Advanced” course dives deep into the fascinating world of the windows heap exploitation and memory leaks now Windows 7 & 10 Heap and contains intro to x64 stack and heap exploitation. These courses cover topics that others don’t teach, share private research and practical tips & tricks to become better at writing exploits for the Windows platform, and aims at inspiring you how to perform research by yourself.
In-Person – 4 Days
Beneficial to both the offensive and the defensive side of the camp, the knowledge and hands-on experience gained in this training will help attendees with real-world red teaming engagements and in defending against both custom advanced persistent threat (APT) tooling and common-off-the-shelf (COTS) malware. Attendees will learn about how malware and implants interact with the latest version of Windows and how the different stages of malware abuse and exploit various components of Windows OS to achieve their goals and evade defenses.
Live – Online, In-Person & Hybrid – 5 Days
Burp Suite Pro is the leading tool for auditing Web applications at large, but also a complex beast where new features get added every few weeks. Mastering Burp Suite Pro, including its newest features, allows testers to get the most out of the tool, optimizing time spent auditing and testing. Work will be faster (hotkeys!) and much more efficient (more tools, more possibilities!). Attendees will also learn to measure and assess the quality of their attacks, a crucial skill in real-life engagements that can make the difference between a false-negative and a critical finding.
Live – Online – 4 Days
This four-day course introduces a tactical approach that does not rely on exploiting known vulnerabilities. Using a combination of new tools and lesser-known techniques, participants will learn how hackers compromise Windows and Unix systems without depending on standard exploits. The class alternates between theory and hands-on testing, providing students with an opportunity to put their new skills to the test. Course content features the latest security practices including Windows 2016 and additional WMI-based techniques.
In-Person – 4 Days
CyberKnights
CyberKnights is a cybersecurity skills assessment and workforce development portal built on the National Initiative Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Framework, a widely-adopted standardized taxonomy. CyberKnights enables assessment and development of skills by individuals, employers, government, and academia.
Individuals can register for free to establish a cybersecurity skills portfolio. Registered CyberKnights can learn how the NICE Framework helps identify knowledge and skills they currently have and how they can add more to their skills portfolio. The portal will display alignment of their skills portfolio to job opportunities posted by employers. Individuals can also search on academic institutions/training providers offering courses and certifications to achieve their career goals and add those knowledge and skills to their portfolio upon completion.
Through the partnership of CyberKnights and VetSec, veterans can establish a skills portfolio for their career journey, showcasing their knowledge and skills growth to increase their alignment to job opportunities.
SplunkWork+
Through our partnership with Splunk and as part of the $100 million Splunk Pledge, ALL VetSec members have access to Splunk Fundamentals I and II.
Fundamentals I will teach you how to search and navigate in Splunk, use fields, get statistics from your data, create reports, dashboards, lookups, and alerts. Scenario-based examples and hands-on challenges will enable you to create robust searches, reports, and charts. It will also introduce you to Splunk’s datasets features and Pivot interface.
Fundamentals II focuses on searching and reporting commands as well as on the creation of knowledge objects. Major topics include using transforming commands and visualizations, filtering and formatting results, correlating events, creating knowledge objects, using field aliases and calculated fields, creating tags and event types, using macros, creating workflow actions and data models, and normalizing data with the Common Information Model (CIM).
Level Effect Cyber Defense Analyst Bootcamp
Through a partnership with Level Effect, VetSec is proud to offer a single seat to every cohort of the Cyber Defense Analyst Bootcamp at Level Effect, created and taught by Ex-NSA and industry senior instructors. For members not selected for the scholarship, any VetSec member can attend with a $2,500 discount provided by the team at Level Effect. The Cyber Defense Analyst bootcamp teaches students how to defend and protect an organization’s Windows networks. You will also learn how to assess and communicate threats to executives and implement organization wide security practices.
This bootcamp is worth 47 credits to a Bachelor of Science degree at Purdue University global, and is built to meet an exceed the US federal government and Department of Defense NIST NICE Cyber Defense Analyst requirements. Classes are kept to a maximum of 35 students for personal learning, with over 200 hours of live instruction and over 300 hours of labs. Level Effect has an over 92% job placement rate within a 3-month average after graduation.
TCM Security Academy Partner
Through a partnership with TCM Security Academy, VetSec is proud to offer a 20% discount off their Practical Network Penetration Tester certification with training, and 50% off all courses in the TCM Academy. Additionally, VetSec and TCM Security are donating one full PNPT voucher each quarter to a veteran in need.
Evolve Security Academy Partner
Through a partnership with Evolve Security Academy, VetSec is proud to be able to award two seats to their Offensive Security Certified Practitioner (OSCP) Bootcamp annually, and all other VetSec members can attend with a $500 discount. This bootcamp is 18 weeks, live instructor-led training to prepare members for the OSCP certification. Students gain 240 CPE hours, access to the Learn One platform from Offensive Security, and two OSCP certification exam attempts.
Creating a world where no veteran pursuing a career in cybersecurity goes unemployed.
