Get to Know Your Instructor: Kitt Parker

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The Q & A

Tell us about yourself:

"I am a technology enthusiast who loves to learn about new and evolving tech. At a young age, I began building my own personal computers and also started exploring various programming languages while in high school. As soon as high school ended, I joined the Air Force for 8 years. During my time in the military I earned a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. After a great experience in the US Air Force, I exited the military with an honorable discharge, activated my GI Bill and earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at a local university while working full time. The second degree allowed me to further envelop myself in the topic I loved while being able to skip the normally associated costs, a fantastic advantage provided through military service. I currently work as a Business Intelligence Developer that provides me with a wide range of professional experience that varies from complex server management techniques to developing applications via full stack programming. I have varied experience across multiple computer programming languages that include Python, PHP, C#, Visual Basic, C++, SQL."

What brought you to teaching on Cybrary:

"I originally found Cybrary through a job posting on one of those job posting sites. The job posting sounded like an exciting opportunity to take my experience to the next level by sharing knowledge on the topics I love. Before the job posting, I had not heard of Cybrary, but after some digging, I discovered that the Cybrary organization is full of talented, motivated, and passionate individuals excited to share their knowledge with the rest of the world. Once I understood Cybrary’s mission, I excitedly applied and waited for a response. Luckily a response generated rather quickly and an interview followed. I was one of the lucky individuals who applied and passed the interview process, I would be permitted to function as an instructor within the Cybrary organization. Following this news, I started developing my first instructional video series that would focus on an introduction to the SQL programming language. I recently completed the course and I’m finishing the final processes involved to get the course live on the Cybrary web site. Following the successful deployment of my first course, I intend to begin developing additional content for use on the organizational website to promote learning and mastery of the various technology elements."

Learn how you can contribute on Cybrary >>

Tell us a little bit about your course:

"My course is a programming introduction course that focuses on the SQL programming language. SQL is considered the primary language of relational databases and serves as a primary target of hackers. Having a good deal of knowledge on how SQL works and functions is the best defense for an organizational database. Advanced and general knowledge of SQL will allow individuals to realize how hackers would access a database, what they would take advantage of and most importantly, how to close those gaps so that the hacker will see that the involved database has no open invitation. In this course, we go over all the main components of the SQL database language that include topics such as schema development, query writing, table relationships, constraints, concurrency concerns, triggers, procedures, functions, and how third party applications access and use database connections, as well as some other areas. Following completion of this course, the individual will have the knowledge required to navigate databases, how databases are queried, and how to build simple database schema that can support minor applications. The primary focus of this course is not security of a SQL database, but how to use, develop, and work within a database using the SQL language. This knowledge then lays the foundation of a deep understanding of the security concern around databases."

Your Experience in Cyber Security:

"My education includes two Bachelor of Science degrees earned at two different educational institutions. I hold both an Information Technology degree and a Computer Science degree. I currently work for a private company that serves the US Government, which creates a paramount focus on information security. I function as a Business Intelligence Developer which entails deploying and maintaining servers. These servers are scanned every month for known vulnerabilities, anytime one is discovered, it is my responsibility to enforce a solution that resolves the vulnerability. The solution can vary from patching the software, to finding a replacement service. In addition to server maintenance, I also develop various applications to meet local business needs. While developing local apps, I must ensure that I’m practicing good security by ensuring that SSL certificates are properly implemented, that other types of encryption are correctly implemented (i.e. password encryption), and that SQL injection attacks are not possible on any form that interacts with a database."

Interests in Cyber Security:

"Cyber security is a very important topic that touches nearly every part of technology. Cyber security must be a concern when working with various types of servers as these servers must accept connections in a manner that protect personal or company data. When developing new applications in various programming languages, the programmer must be concerned with how users request data from the application, this is where a SQL injection attack could occur if not properly fortified. These combined facts make Cyber Security a very interesting and important concept for me as a technology professional. I must understand how the servers I control interact with the world. I must also understand how apps that I develop could be abused and taken advantage of if not properly developed. I have great deal of interest in cyber security and often go above and beyond to ensure that my responsible assets are properly secured."