🎒 Back to school!

My first week back in school, but this time as a Master's student.

Author

Jessica Bassett
May 24, 2025

👋 This Week’s Check-In

I’ve officially wrapped up my first week of school as a Master’s student! I am attending Dakota State University’s graduate program in Cyber Defense. I’m really looking forward to writing about my experience attending this school. I have heard such great things. Even while attending WiCyS a few months back, I had the opportunity to meet a few girls who are students at DSU and they had so many great things to say about this school.

I purchased a Notion template from Etsy that will help me stay super organized in school and keep everything in one place. I’m actually super happy with the template so far, and I think I’m also going to purchase the creator’s Business notion template, now that I am going to be writing a weekly newsletter! Let me know if you want the templates I’m using. (You can reply below ⬇️)

đź“š Learning Corner

This Week in School

Current Focus: Digital Forensics & Offensive Security

My current classes are Digital Forensics and Offensive Security. Right now it is mainly introductory videos and syllabus walk-throughs. It has been a while since I have done traditional school where you have assignments with due dates. I completed my bachelors at WGU and IYKYK, they are competency-based, and the only test or assignment you complete is to pass the class altogether. So, it’s fair to say I was a bit nervous going into the start of my Master’s, but all-in-all I am ecstatic about it thus far and look forward to getting in the groove and getting to know some of the other students.

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Study Tip of the Week: Use a Notion template or spreadsheet to stay on top of due dates. Email professor for any clarifications in first week or two. Set goals for yourself that will push you.

đź’» Tech Discoveries

Cool Tools & Resources

Certification: If you want a quick win to add to your resume and LinkedIn profile, go to AttackIQ.com and take the Foundations of Mitre Attack course. This is completely free and will give you a certificate you can add to your credentials. I think the course took me less than a day to finish. There are many others that might catch your eye as well!

GitHub Find: The Threat Hunter Playbook - This has been a great resource for me while learning more about threat hunting.

đź”’ Security Corner

This Week's Security Focus

While I'm on the topic of offensive security for school, I want to highlight the importance of understanding just how vulnerable we all are to social engineering attacks. The statistics from recent research are honestly mind-blowing: up to 98% of cyber attacks involve some form of social engineering, and the time it takes to fall for a phishing email is less than 60 seconds. What really caught me off guard was learning that contrary to popular belief, millennials and Gen-Z users are more likely to fall for a phishing scam than older generations – so much for being "digital pioneers," I guess. Even more alarming, social engineering, due to human errors, accounts for 74% of data breaches, and MacAfee estimated that 97% of people globally cannot identify a sophisticated phishing email. These numbers hit different when you realize that a ransomware attack happens every 11 seconds, and for small businesses like the ones our families might run, 60% of SMEs that suffer a successful cyber attack go out of business within six months. It's a stark reminder that all the technical security knowledge in the world doesn't matter if we can't defend against the human element of cybersecurity [1].

🛡️ Quick Security Tip: The 10-Second Rule

Before clicking any link or responding to urgent requests, pause and count to 10. Ask yourself: Was I expecting this? Does the urgency make sense? Can I verify this another way?

That 10-second pause has already saved me from clicking sketchy links twice this month. It's harder when you're rushing between classes or dealing with kids, but those few seconds of critical thinking are your best defense against becoming another statistic.

✨ Life Stuff

What's Working

Favorite Thing: Loving my new keyboard by LoFree - FlowLite 84

Life Lesson: I think it’s so true that the way we do one thing is the way we do everything. Now that I am back in school, I can sense that I am more organized in all aspects of life. Loving it so far!

✌️ Until Next Week

If you’re new here …

Hi! 👋 I’m Jessica. I began studying cybersecurity in 2021 when I decided it was time to give my kids and myself a better life than we were living. I quickly became obsessed with cyber and fast forward to now, I hold numerous industry certifications, work as a Security Operations Analyst and am pursuing my Master’s in Cyber Defense.

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