Photo By Steven Stover | FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md. -- Capt. Alexander Master, a cyber operations officer, is...... read more read more
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Hometown: Plymouth, Indiana
Military Occupational Specialty: Cyber Operations Officer (17A)
Duty position: Commander, Bravo Company, 781st Military Intelligence Battalion (Cyber), Fort George G. Meade, Maryland.
QUICK SKETCH:
-- Commissioned from Purdue University Army ROTC in 2013 as a Field Artillery Officer
-- Bachelor of Science degree in Computer & Information Technology – Network Engineering
-- Deployment to Afghanistan with the 101st Airborne Division before being selected for Cyber Branch
-- Has served in both defensive (Cyber Protection Team) and offensive (780th Military Intelligence Brigade (Cyber) cyberspace operations organizations and roles
-- Currently pursuing his Master of Engineering in Cybersecurity Engineering from the University of Maryland
-- Possesses 10 Industry certifications from vendors such as (ISC)2, Cisco, VMware, SANS Institute, CompTIA, and EC-Council
RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENT:
Capt. Alex Master originally volunteered to be a mentor during the “Pros vs Joes CTF” (capture the flag) competition at the BSides security conference in Washington D.C. Based on his experience in defensive cyberspace operations with a National Cyber Protection Team, the conference requested that he serve as a Blue Team Lead during the competition. He accepted. The competition lasted eight hours and consisted of threat hunting the BSides Red Team, ensuring business systems remained active and available for notional “customers”, remediating and hardening vulnerable computer systems, and (when authorized) “hacking back” against both Red Team and against other Blue Teams to earn points. Captain Master’s team, cheekily named the “RaidersOfTheLostArp”, won the competition with the most overall points.
ON WHY HE CHOSE THE ARMY:
“Honestly, I joined the Army because it was a way to pay for my education and make something better of myself than all the folks that never left my tiny hometown. I have stayed in this long because of the people; the Military attracts, or maybe creates, a certain type of personality and humor in people that I can’t get enough of. I have also come to thrive on leadership and responsibility, and I’m not sure I would get the same experience out in the private sector.”
ON WHY HE CHOSE ARMY CYBER:
“I always intended to take my career in a technical direction. I was a “branch-detailed” Officer, so after my first four years I was slated to become an Intelligence Officer. I planned to pursue Signals Intelligence, with the hopes that I could utilize my undergraduate and information technology work experience background. When I saw that the Army was standing up a Cyber component, I saw an opportunity to be exactly where I belonged and applied.”
ON WHAT HE WOULD TELL SOMEONE CONSIDERING ARMY CYBER:
“InfoSec (information security) is the best career field to be in right now, (in) my opinion. It’s challenging and the skills you learn are valuable in every aspect of our world that is increasingly reliant on technology. If you want to be in a field where you are constantly learning, and can apply your skills to real world problems that often make the news, this is the field for you.”
FUTURE GOALS:
“My mid-term goals are to begin and achieve a PhD in Information Security at my alma mater, Purdue University. After that I hope to go to the Army Cyber Institute in New York, to conduct research on behalf of the Army to help solve big problems from a Cyber perspective. I also hope in the long term to bring that knowledge back to the operational force at Army Cyber and U.S. Cyber Command as I progress in my military career.”
FAVORITE QUOTE:
“If you’re gonna do something, why not give it your best shot.” – unknown.
If you are not passionate about the job you are doing, stop. Someone else will. And if no one does, maybe what you were doing wasn’t worth doing after all.
| Date Taken: | 01.28.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 01.28.2019 09:38 |
| Story ID: | 308438 |
| Location: | PLYMOUTH, INDIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 966 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, CYBER SNAPSHOT: Captain Alexander Master, by Steven Stover, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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