Jorge Hernandez Umanzor

How did you first hear about Rize, and why did you decide to take a Rize course?

Jorge is a junior at Morningside University originally from El Salvador. He came to the U.S. to play soccer with a plan to study Computer Science but added a second major in Cybersecurity through Rize. He initially became interested in cybersecurity when he realized the relevance of the field especially in the age of AI-driven cyber attacks. His academic advisor told him about the Introduction to Cybersecurity course, and he immediately noticed the value of being able to “study different concepts with your hands-on experience through projects."

How did you apply your Rize skills outside of the classroom?

Jorge secured an IT Help Desk internship at KMB Transportation, a local trucking services company in Nebraska. When a friend had sent him the job listing, the cybersecurity and back-end requirements immediately stood out as an opportunity to combine learnings from both of his majors. The knowledge from his Rize courses helped him land his role: during the application process he used the cover letter and resume templates from his courses, and during his interview, he was asked about specific cybersecurity threats including man-in-the-middle attacks and DDoS attacks; "I had learned these concepts through Rize courses, and that helped me to land my internship and eventually perform my job."

Major responsibilities: Jorge became the go-to person for drivers with issues related to their tech (tablet, camera, wiring) and navigation issues. The company trusted him with administrator privileges, giving him access to drivers' information, computers, accounts, and emails. He was also tasked with swapping out 400 computers across the entire company: updating systems, transferring data, installing programs, and joining each machine to the company domain.

Stopping a phishing attack: One day, a driver called Jorge directly, which was unusual since dispatchers normally handle initial contact. When the driver mentioned receiving an email saying his credentials had been leaked, Jorge found this suspicious because he knew that credentials were managed internally, not by third parties. When he asked for the driver's username, the driver couldn't answer and everything Jorge learned in his Rize courses clicked into place. "It came to my mind, this concept of man-in-the-middle attacks, which is basically when someone tries to access privileged information through social engineering."

Jorge transferred the call to the dispatcher without providing credentials. Later that week, the company discovered someone had stolen a driver's tablet—it was the same "driver" who had called Jorge. His boss congratulated him for preventing a major breach that could have enabled product theft and damaged the company's reputation.

How did this experience impact your career trajectory?

The internship has given Jorge a perspective of what it’s like to work in corporate America, something that he only understood abstractly prior to this opportunity. Additionally, it helped to expand his career interests and hone in on the types of work that he enjoys. "I didn't know too much about IT before. I thought that I wanted to do more software development, web development. But with IT, there’s a lot of troubleshooting skills that you need to have. I enjoy solving problems, I enjoy troubleshooting.”

What's next for you?

Jorge is continuing his internship while completing his junior year. He is currently taking Network Cybersecurity and applying what he's learning in real-time at his internship, particularly around joining computers to domains and managing administrator accounts. In a recent assignment, he was asked to come up with a good cybersecurity procedure that would be applicable in real-world scenarios. Based on the types of challenges he experiences day-to-day in an administrator role, he proposed a solution that easily tracks changes that an administrator makes in the server or in the domain.

Jorge plans to continue building his skills in both computer science and cybersecurity, with the internship helping him build an IT skillset that is essential and transferrable to almost every company.