I’m early, my skateboard got me here with time to spare. I have never been in a place like this.  The receiving party (a) cannot disclose the confidential information...(b) cannot use the confidential information...(c) will use reasonable efforts to protect the confidentiality...” I was escorted into an office and explained the elements of an NDA (non disclosure agreement).  I had to sign it, take a picture, grab my security badge and pick up my new equipment at tech support. This is a whole new world; they even have a “make your own soda” machine.

I am here, it is my first day at RiskIQ, a Cybersecurity firm in San Francisco. I am their first high school intern and the only intern on the team, I am working under the VP of Engineering, Nick Goodman. In the engineering department, we develop new products for better protection of our clients information, software and hardware. My project was to build two honeypots (servers with fake financial data), this data was specifically used to lure “would be” hackers to come in and steal the information through open ports which appear as faulty security.  I set up the system to place cookies (these are tags on the user to trace their activity/web site visits) on the would be hackers to track their activity.  After the build, I am tasked with gathering data, evaluation and presenting recommendations for additional layers of security on the company's products. 

Day 1, I set off to design the honeypot and began getting familiar with the network. The honeypot was easy to build, but I had to think like a thief.  What is a hacker looking for? How can I get them to come in and not recognize the trap.  Nick invites me to lunch and to my surprise, he never asks about the project.  That is all I can think about and I even have a prepared answer in my head.  Instead, Nick is interested in asking about my skateboard, and music. I spend several days on research and design, but I’m 16, I don’t really even know what financial data looks like.  I’m stuck.