My experience supporting information security at a data company

Having joined Grayce in our first Data+ training cohort last September, Grayce Analyst, Daniel Gadish, reflects on how he is using his Data skills to support his client’s Information Security Delivery Team.

I am a project analyst working in the Information Security Delivery Team at a leading global sports data and insights company. My client has several key business priorities such as maintaining their competitive advantage and successful mergers and acquisitions, but the main one I am supporting is data security.

As with any modern company which deals with large volumes of data, data protection and other regulations are key to being able to sell solutions to certain markets. It is a key priority for my client to maintain a high level or security regarding its data and to comply with these different regulations.

In my role, I am organising and providing oversight on several InfoSec projects. I’m doing this through a variety of methods, such as meeting facilitation; creating and maintaining Jira ticket and Confluence pages; providing updates to others on the project; and producing automated Power BI dashboards that give an overview of the project and any issues.

At my client, I’ve been able to use my knowledge of data tools and the context of data sets to recommend the best course of action. One example is when I was asked to produce a dashboard to track the progress of installing certain applications across all corporate devices. It was suggested I use Splunk, a visualisation tool for machine data, however after some training and familiarising myself with the data, I determined that it would be both faster and more appropriate to build the dashboard in Power BI instead. I raised this with my manager, who agreed to the change and have now produced an MVP for the dashboard, with work to be done to move it to a fully automated state.

As well as using Jira and Confluence on a regular basis, I am also using Data-specific skills such as Power BI and Python in my role. My proficiency in these tools comes from a mixture of learning on the job, my Data+ bootcamp training, LinkedIn Learning courses, and Udemy and Dataquest courses.

Grayce have supported my success largely through my Delivery Manager, who has supported me every step of the way at my client, from first helping me to settle in, to making sure the role is aligned to my interests. I’ve also made use of the LinkedIn Learning license Grayce provides to supplement my knowledge and improve my skills in core tools like Power BI.

Whilst on my client assignment, I’ve learnt that although I don’t necessarily have a lot of experience, I do bring a fresh perspective and different set of skills to the table. My client team have given me a great platform to bring new ideas to the table by being open to my suggestions and encouraging me to voice my opinions in meetings.