GrantI was able to gain valuable experience while still a student, gaining specialized knowledge outside of my field of work.

Please tell us why you chose Kochi National College of Technology

When I was in my third year of junior high school, I was thinking about where to go to college and decided that I wanted to study specialized subjects in the field of information science, and my parents recommended Kochi National College of Technology to me.

Please tell us why you chose the information security course.

I was thinking of going into information science, but I think it was also important that I was able to reconfirm the path I wanted to take by experiencing the exercises and basic subjects related to each course before choosing the course.

At Kochi National College of Technology, 3rd year students are assigned to each course, but 1st and 2nd year students experience the lectures and exercises that form the basis of each course in a class called ``Design Engineering Seminar'', so during this time they can develop their own skills. You can think about the course you want to take.

In my case, in addition to this class, when I learned programming in the "Programming Fundamentals" class, I felt that it suited me, and I thought that the information field would be a good fit for me, so I chose the Information Security course.

Please tell us about your experience of participating in K-SEC events.

Participated in exercises related to incident response, such as K-SEC's winter school and information crisis management exercises. I think it was a valuable experience in that I was able to gain specialized knowledge that was outside the scope of the class through my own experience while still a student.

I often learned about K-SEC events from Professor Yohei Iwasaki, who was my homeroom teacher for the information security course for three years, and Professor Takayuki Tachikawa, an advisor to the Information Technology Research Department. I participated in the event with my seniors from club activities and friends, and was influenced by them, so I also participated in the KOSEN Security Contest together.

I haven't been able to participate in security events like this since I entered the workforce, so I would like to try again to improve myself.

Please tell us about your research themes and content during your studies.

Titled "Building a real-time intrusion notification system using Raspberry Pi and Python," I was building a system that notifies a messaging app when it detects communication that meets specified conditions. I had a lot of trouble deciding on a theme, but thanks to the guidance of Yoshinori Takesako, a visiting professor at Kochi National College of Technology, I was able to come up with something.

Please tell me why you chose your current career path.

One of the reasons I chose STNet was that it was a security-related company in Shikoku and close to my hometown of Kochi, but I also wanted to participate in an internship where I could interact with actual workers and get to know the atmosphere of the workplace. I was able to do so and wanted to work there. After actually working there, I was blessed with the people around me, and I think the atmosphere was exactly what I felt during my internship.

Please tell us about your current job content.

As STNet is an information and communications provider for the Shikoku Electric Power Group, our main duties include security diagnosis and dissemination of vulnerability information within the company and to group companies. Other activities include serving as a lecturer for in-house training and raising awareness by posting security news in group chats for system administrators.

Has your experience as a student been useful in your current job?

I think that something that is particularly closely related is security diagnosis. Tools are sometimes used in diagnostics to improve efficiency, but sometimes it is necessary to manually confirm whether the problems found by the tools really exist, and some problems cannot be found by the tools in the first place. Basically, your own knowledge and experience will be tested.

Furthermore, even if a problem exists, it is necessary to communicate not only its existence, but also the expected risks, importance, countermeasures, etc. Knowledge and ability to communicate are important. I believe that in such situations, I am able to respond based on what I learned in class and what I experienced at events.

Please tell us your future goals.

I'm still inexperienced and my long-term goals are vague, but even when I look at my seniors in my current department, I sometimes feel like I can't match them in terms of technical ability. For now, I would like to work hard to become a diagnostician with the technical skills to be on par with my seniors, and gain a variety of experiences.

Please give a message to your juniors.

I hope that you will take advantage of your privilege as a student and actively try to do things that you can only do now. I myself participated in K-SEC events several times when I was a student, and I believe that experience has definitely laid the foundation for who I am. Please try out various things, not just K-SEC events.