Late to what, you may be wondering. Well, October is among many dedicated awareness months; it's the one for Cybersecurity.

An industry that is part of my professional identity (pun intended!) as a practitioner, and in the midst of plenty of How to get into Cybersecurity social media noise, I figure I’d add my own two cents.

Before I do, the usual disclaimers: no two people are the same, and the same goes for the journey. Having said that, I will transparently share what worked for me as well as some hindsight 20/20 advice.

1. Block out the 5-9

   Chances are you are currently employed and curious about what the field is like. That is what your post-work hours are for. Cybersecurity itself is a broad field; use this time to explore and narrow your interests in its domains according to CISSP:

   1. Security & Risk Management

   2. Asset security

   3. Security Architecture and Engineering

   4. Communication & Network Security

   5. Identity & Access Management (IAM)

   6. Security Assessment & Testing

   7. Security Operations

   8. Software Development Security

I have deliberately omitted details on each, so go ahead and search for them.

2. Use AI

   Yes, use it. Once you have an idea of the domains you’re interested in, ask it for a learning plan, useful podcasts, publications, people to follow, etc.

3. Get out there (even if just to lurk)

   Another way of using point 1: that 5-9 can also be spent towards in-person cybersecurity events, webinars, Reddit, Discord. Ask people questions, be vocal about your interest; you’ll learn a ton and reset hope for humanity, as most people genuinely want to help.

4. Have a play

   Depending on the domains selected, chances are there are dedicated resources to help you build projects and tackle challenges and, more importantly, to learn. My personal favourite is TryHackMe- an honourable mention, as it was my very first cybersecurity event where I won some swag (pictured)

5. Invest in yourself

   Although this is my no.1 value in life, for these action steps, this is the penultimate one for a reason. Once all of the above is complete, for each career pivot, I have no shame in admitting that I paid for a CV and Cover Letter writer. Yes, AI is out there (as are their watermarks). Thus, there is value in an experienced human to help you translate your transferable skills and experiences into your desired role.

   That investment extends to books, the premium version of whatever it is you maximised the value of the free version of.

6. Luck - we all need it

   This one, well, it is mostly out of our control. Though Oprah Winfrey famously said: “Luck is preparation meeting opportunity”.

   Believing this has served me well, except my luck was preparation AND getting over the cringe to post on LinkedIn (it may have hit me again, but that’s beside the point; I have plans to get over it) about my learnings and insights as I went through the five previous steps, a combination of them all and in a random moment - my ticket came through ⬇️

And just like that, I am now writing to you as if I’m the Carrie Bradshaw of Identity Security.

Until next time!

More specifically, the misinterpreted Mayan predictions that the world would end on the 21st of December?

That was my initial reaction to the seemingly ominous X post from Jacob Coxon, a now-former researcher at Anthropic who warned that AI could kill us by the end of the decade.

In the spirit of critical thinking, I recommend reading the whole thread linked above.

But for now, stick around for a far less gloomy outlook. Why so optimistic, you may ask?

Because I have a Humanities background (and yes, I consider that to be a flex!) and a philosophical belief in the resilience and ingenuity of Humanitas. Plus, Humans are as stubborn and resistant to change as they are ingenious.

Let’s look at what is happening on the ground of AI adoption. According to the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) report, AI adoption is still varied by business size and sector, with Agentic AI still quite limited. The data tells one story. Real-life conversations tell another. There are companies out there that are still evaluating which providers to use and exploring use cases per business function.

All of this to say, as humans, we are still in the early stages of maximising AI’s full potential. I am fully cognizant that for those working in its development, there have been quantum (pun intended!) leaps: AI in robotics, machinery, all of which I still embrace with excitement.

AI and Machines don’t (yet!) exist independently of human systems. Humans decide where to deploy them, what access to give them, what data they can access, and what happens when they fail.

And that matters because an identity isn't dangerous simply because it exists; it becomes consequential when it has access, privileges and the ability to act on one’s behalf.

Having said that, my intention is not to minimise risk, of which there are genuinely pressing ones at present.

What actually worries me for individuals and organisations alike

Being in the identity security space, what concerns me most is the identity and access layer, particularly as AI systems increasingly gain access to the same resources humans do.

Some industry research estimates that Non-Human Identities (AI and/or Machine) outnumber humans by over 100:1. And as the number of identities grows, so does the potential attack surface. Drafting an e-mail with a diplomatic tone or enquiring why the guy is ghosting you is a relatively low-stakes activity compared to accessing our health and financial information and making decisions from it.

Though not at Jacob’s Terminator-level fears, at an organisational level, we've already seen glimpses of this class of risk: AI agents interacting with real systems can create unintended consequences when their permissions, instructions and environment don't behave as expected - hello, Hugging Face!

And I’m sure that I will have plenty more to share as I work through my learning roadmap outlined in the previous post.

But for now, in true British style, everyone, Keep Calm and Carry On!

Until next time!

Does that mean I have fully evaded the great lock in? No.

There is plenty on my personal and professional roadmap (I’ll share shortly, indulge me in the meantime). One of the many facets of my identity is an interest in fashion and how it shapes/reflects cultural and societal phenomena.

All of that context to explain how during my social media scrolling I came across a short snippet with the self-described “Serena Williams of Styling” - Law Roach.

For those of you not aware, Law got his start styling Céline Dion, not only a singing icon, but someone who has inadvertently influenced how I’m approaching lock-in season and perhaps life in general.

In it Law describes an instance where whilst rushing out, he was trying to buckle Céline’s shoes and when she noticed said:

Take your time, it goes faster.

Considering the industry many of us work in, there is no shortage of updates and announcements.

As I write, OpenAI has released more models, solutions; which I’m sure will be met with equal if not greater force by its market competitors.

The instinct might be to consume it all to stay current.

And whilst I do plan to do so and write through it, I’m doing it in MY time, and recommend you do it too.

Without further ado, this is my Identity/AI Security roadmap, which you’re more than welcome to join; and yes, I will be leveraging AI to help with learning:

Phase One — The Fundamentals
Identity & Access Management (IAM) → Privileged Access Management (PAM) → Identity Governance & Administration (IGA)

Phase Two — The Deeper Dive
Non-Human Identities (NHI) → Agentic Identity & Authorisation → Securing Agentic AI

Phase Three — Risk & Governance
NIST → EU AI Act → Wrap-up project

The goal is to build enough depth to understand where identity, security, AI and governance intersect and what that means for the people and organisations adopting them.

And that’s it for now!

The coming weeks and months will be filled with sharing said learnings and thoughts.

In the meantime a reminder that:

🍂 Autumn Starts on the 21st of September - and still I’ll drink a pumpkin spice latte.

Contradiction is a top-tier perk of being human.

Until next time!

And yet, through life, I have always been drawn to numbers - enneagram, numerology, palindrome days…

Why do I share this?

Well, numerologically speaking, 2026 is a Universal Year 1, and according to Vogue, that means a major reset. According to me, that means embracing and shifting some facets of my identity.

At my core, one of those facets is the fact that I am a writer.

Fun fact: this is not my first publication - I’ll happily drop more Easter Eggs in future about past blogs, as they too are part of my past story and present interests.

Now, this post title and publication name should serve as a giveaway for one big identity shift: my career pivot into cybersecurity, which has landed me in the Identity & Access Management (IAM) domain.

Life has a funny way of placing you where you are meant to be in a given moment.

All of the above is a segue into what you’ll find in this publication: a mix of exploring the wider world of identity, security, and trust, with sprinkles of how my own (and your) identities are being shaped in the process.

Until next time,

Ludmila

P-s- although I generally love AI, this is selfishly my opportunity to flex my writing muscle. Therefore, any readability issues are by design; stick around to see improvement.

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