# Summer 2026 Internship

## Turn classroom cybersecurity skills into real project experience.

### A 6 week Summer 2026 remote-first internship for students ready to build resume-worthy work with mentorship from Growth Sector, Cyberdefenders, and SF Bay Area Employers and Startup Ecosystem partners.

### Program Focus

- Applied cybersecurity projects
- Open-source tools, nonprofit security assessments, SOC 2 audit readiness, hardware research, honeypots, threat research, and resume-quality deliverables.

## Why Apply

- **Built for 2nd and 3rd year** cybersecurity students who want credible experience beyond coursework.

### Real Experience

- Work on practical cybersecurity problems with constraints, feedback, and deliverables that resemble real team projects.

### Resume-Worthy Work

- Leave with project artifacts you can discuss in interviews, portfolios, transfer applications, and internship searches.

### Employer Network

- Meet mentors and Bay Area partners who can help you understand cybersecurity roles, expectations, and next steps.

## Program Overview

- **Duration**: 6 weeks (Mid-June to mid-August)
- **Format**: Remote-first project-based work with mentorship, regular feedback, and a couple optional in-person sessions.
- **Expected Workload**: 15-20 hours/week designed so students can manage existing work, school, family, or other commitments.
- **Compensation**: Unpaid experience-focused internship designed around practical deliverables.

## AI Security Bootcamp Option

- Students will have an optional 1 week bootcamp before project work begins.

### From First Principles

- Learn about the exciting intersection of AI, machine learning, and security, including the practical challenges of securing AI workloads, all from first principles.

## Important Dates

- **Application Deadline**: May 23, 2026
- **Phone Interviews Complete**: June 1, 2026
- **Acceptance Notifications**: June 12, 2026
- **Program Starts**: June 15, 2026
- **Waitlist Update**: June 17, 2026

## Objective

- Develop practical, open-source cybersecurity tools, workflows, assessments, compliance artifacts, and research deliverables across multiple project tracks.

## Project Tracks

Interns can contribute through various project tracks:

### Project Track 1: Malware Copilot: AI-Assisted Reverse Engineering Lab
- Build, improve, and benchmark Model Context Protocol tools for an AI malware analysis agent.

### Project Track 2: Secure the Mission: Nonprofit Security Assessment Lab
- Provide hands-on technical support and a structured security risk assessment for a real community organization.

### Project Track 3: Trust but Verify: SOC 2 Audit Readiness
- Build SOC 2 Type II audit readiness by supporting a compliance program with real deliverables.

### Project Track 4: Lens Check: IoT Camera Privacy Lab
- Analyze a low-cost consumer IoT camera in a controlled lab to assess privacy, firmware, network, and cloud security risks.

### Project Track 5: Ghost Cloud: LLM Honeypots in AWS
- Build and evaluate LLM-assisted honeypots in AWS focusing on safe deployment and useful security telemetry.

### Project Track 6: Signal in the Noise: Threat Intel for Community Defenders
- Research threat actors and build structured threat actor profiles.

### Project Track 7: Prompt to Pentest: LLM-Assisted Security Testing Lab
- Use LLMs to support authorized vulnerability discovery and custom pentesting tool development in controlled lab environments.

## Student Testimonials

- Past students have used Cyber Defenders projects as a bridge into security work and community leadership.

> "As a community college student, the projects and experiences I engaged in through this program helped me develop the foundation that enabled my transition into fulltime DevSecOps work..." - Drew Gibson

## Interview Phase

- Applications are now closed while selected applicants move through interviews.