This is what I did as a cyber security analyst during my internship at Colgate Palmolive -By Sankha Chakraborty from SCIT Pune

This internship opportunity at Colgate Palmolive has given me a platform to bridge up the gap of theoretical knowledge to the practical application in the corporate sector in the information security field. Here is a brief overview of my internship journey.

Colgate Palmolive is one of the famous FMCG brands in the world. Being a part of this organization as a summer intern is what every MBA intern dreams of. Colgate Palmolive offers a fantastic platform of learning in the cyber security domain, where each day is a learning in itself. Moreover, being a part of the FMCG company’s IT sector provides a platform to relate how the security prospect of the IT domain will impact the actual production of a company. It provides a blend of knowledge in the manufacturing area as well as the IT field. I learnt how important the security of that information is in order to protect the confidentiality, availability and integrity of this big brand.

A rigorous and well-laid out selection process

The selection process of an internship at Colgate Palmolive was a rigorous one. It consisted of 4 stages:

• In the first stage, all the candidates had to participate in a pymetrics online game, where there were a total of 12 games with the time limit around 20 minutes. 
• The shortlisted candidates were called for a group discussion.
• Out of all the candidates in the 2nd round, around 15 were called for the 3rd stage which was the case study round. A unique case was given to each group for a duration of 15 minutes to discuss the same. 
• The last hurdle of the process was the personal interview round which consisted of both technical and an HR interview.

This is what a cyber security analyst do

I was offered a role of Cyber Security Analyst in SOC (Security Operations Center) team of Colgate Palmolive where my major task catered to cyber threat intelligence handling of all the file-less and life-based attacks, next-generation cyber threat hunting through analyzing PowerShell, WMI logs, next generation anti-virus and next-generation firewall logs.

As a part of the SOC team, my major responsibilities during my internship at Colgate Palmolive covered, 

• Analysis of day-to-day anti-virus logs through the SIEM (Security Incident and Management) tool to detect and analyze malware events.
• Study of various types of malware like Adware, Spyware, Trojan, Worms, and to provide unique solutions to the user systems which became victims of such attacks. 
• Apart from these daily investigation activities, I have been offered opportunities to study in-depth analysis of business performance in SIEM tool
• To prepare reports and to present the same in the dashboard of SIEM tool with appropriate visualization to check the CPU utilization, load average, average data transactions of hosts over past 24 hours duration of website unavailability that has affected the business over past days if any, and event summary of production servers over past 24 hours.
• To create a backup and recovery policy for safety measures. 

The main responsibility of an information security intern is to protect the organization from any kind of hacking or system compromise activity which may impact the reputation of the organization, to protect the company from modern-day cyber attacks by analyzing the behavior of past attacks and by providing next-generation cyber threat hunting framework to prevent the complex cyber threats to the organization. Apart from that, a SOC analyst intern must proactively Uncover Security Incidents to improve the speed of threat response by reducing the investigation time and assist to achieve appropriate mitigation of threat with an improved defense system. 

This internship at Colgate Palmolive has not only provided hands-on experience on various investigation tools like VirusTotal, AbuseIPDB, Windows Security, next-generation anti-virus tool but also offered an exposure to learn ample amount of techno-managerial knowledge and skills in the field of information security. It also helped me build the pillars of interpersonal skills through interaction with international business users and clients.

A complete package of fun and learning

The most interesting part of my internship at Colgate Palmolive was the online games that were arranged every Monday where all the team members used to take part. These games not only helped us to refresh our mind but also provided a platform to interact with each team member. Apart from that, every Wednesday, cultural programs were organised virtually where our team used to sing songs, play different musical instruments and shared commemorative memories.  These gaming activities arranged by my mentor helped us to build sturdy team skills and assisted us in honing our interpersonal and presentation skills while working remotely.

As it was a virtual internship, outing did not happen but every month-end, all the team members were given an opportunity to interact with senior leaders of Colgate Palmolive where we shared all our views and findings regarding any particular incidents in the functional and information security area.

After experiencing a wholesome internship at  Colgate Palmolive, I definitely want to be a part of the company as a full-time employee. This organisation not only provides a wide platform of learning but offers an amicable work ambiance which is very essential to work in. Apart from that, Colgate believes in respect for all, integrity, excellent learning and knowledge sharing opportunities which are very lucrative for any employee to work in an organisation.