Heather Dawson

Background

About Heather Dawson

I started working in the banking industry where I quickly discovered my love of problem solving. After discovering a coworker was embezzling, I found there was a drive for me to hunt down issues and resolve them. I found that again searching for the cause of illness when I worked in medicine. I began in veterinary medicine and decided to supplement my income with a pet product home business. I quickly learned how to build a website to sell my products. A website filled with cute features like paw print buttons to draw in potential buyers. I eventually changed over to human medicine for better wages. Since then, I found myself having to leave the medical field due to a severe allergy to latex and the cleaning agents used in hospitals. To allow me more options, I began to study business administration at Mount Mercy University. I currently work for the United States Postal Service as a part-time flexible clerk, which allowed me the time to finish my business degree in 2016. I have a drive for a more challenging opportunity. In my search for this, I have found that many applicants are competing with the same business degree, and I wanted to set myself apart from other candidates. The future of purchasing, delivery, billing, and payments is electronic and mobile. I simply cannot afford to miss out on an opportunity and the fulfilling feeling of hunting down or preventing cyber-attacks that working in cyber security will give me. My first course in Cyber Security at Maryville University introduced me to Wireshark and analyzing network traffic and I was hooked! So far, I have created a virtual machine to practice vulnerability assessment, creating reports on network traffic analysis, mitigating vulnerabilities, configuring honeypots, and practicing pen testing techniques. I am currently studying for the CompTIA Security+ certification.