What to Expect From Cybersecurity Internships in 2025

Cybersecurity internships are a hot topic. Here’s what to expect if you’re searching for cybersecurity internships in 2025.

Preface

Cybersecurity internships are a frequent endpoint for those graduating from bachelor‘s or master‘s degree programs. For those who don‘t have any experience building applications or working at a company, cybersecurity internships can act as a critical step through the door of cybersecurity.

What to Expect From Cybersecurity Internships?

First things first, cybersecurity internships aim to provide students in the final year of a university or software bootcamp graduates with some real work experience. „Real work experience“, in this case, means that you will be assigned a temporary role at a company to gain experience assisting with some basic tasks concerning cybersecurity.

The tasks you may be assigned to do may have a wide range. You may be asked to test the security of web or mobile applications (that‘s more commonly known as penetration testing), monitor incoming or outcoming traffic to be able to respond to minor security events or escalate them to the rest of the security team at the company as needed, assess a network for vulnerabilities (of course, with the knowledge of everyone involved), do some basic research into threats, develop basic scripts or assist with automation tasks.

Will You Get Paid for Cybersecurity Internships?

In most cases, students conducting cybersecurity internships also get paid. The pay may vary widely depending on your location, the work you will end up doing, and, of course, your degree and any associated coursework. According to Indeed, the starting salary for cybersecurity internships is around $45,000 a year. Some companies may also pay you in college credit (some universities allow you to earn credits toward your degree program by completing cybersecurity internships.)

How to Find Good Cybersecurity Internships?

Now that you know what to expect from cybersecurity internships, you will start looking for them. As you start for them, be aware of a couple of things:

1. Cybersecurity internships are frequently contested – there are many recent college or university graduates competing for a particular cybersecurity internship.
2. Connections go a long way – if you‘re searching for cybersecurity internships, it is wise to make use of all of your connections as well as talk to people who are completing or have recently completed an internship.
3. Your university can sway you towards the right path – some universities and even high schools have career consultants. These are people that will listen to you and are qualified to provide you with career advice, so if you‘re still in university and you find yourself searching for a cybersecurity internship, career consultants would be a good place to start.
4. Talk to companies aside from their job applications – like a company and would like to work there but see that they don‘t have any applications for interns or no job openings are available altogether? Get in touch with them via their contact form. Such an approach doesn‘t guarantee an internship, but it will provide you with a different stepping stone you can make use of. Tell the employer what you can help them with and a little about your qualifications, and who knows – if you hit the pain points, you may be employed before you even blink.

Last but not least, remember that those searching for cybersecurity internships also need to keep their data safe and private. A good way to do that is to make use of data breach search engines like BreachDirectory.com – if you find yourself building projects, the BreachDirectory API can assist you in quickly obtaining data from data breaches allowing your project to act on it as necessary.

Aside from that, building cybersecurity projects unrelated to data breaches would also be a great idea because building something gets you experience. Education may be nullified if you travel across the globe and your university hasn‘t got a name – experience will stay with you forever. Furthermore, such an approach would be also valued by employers because it would tell them that you don‘t waste your free time and continue educating yourself.

A good way to continue eduacting yourself is to read books on the subject – those interested in database performance, availability, and security may find the book Hacking MySQL: Breaking, Optimizing, and Securing MySQL for Your Use Case a great starting point because it tells cybersecurity engineers and DBAs how databases break, how to optimize them, and how to secure them from data breaches in the first place. Hacking MySQL isn‘t your typical book about database performance – instead, it is a book situated around the ways your databases „break“ in the sense of queries becoming slow and your architecture grinding your database to a halt, how to optimize your database so that these things don‘t repeat themselves, and how to protect your infrastructure from data breaches.

Also, don‘t forget that data breach search engines are there to protect you from data breaches too – some of them allow you to register for data breach notifications and be notified once your data is exposed in a data breach as well.

Summary

Cybersecurity internships are a great stepping stone for those graduating from university or college bootcamps. Such entry points into cybersecurity are frequently highly competitive, but nonetheless, building and employing a strategy that gets your foot in the door is a great first step to make.

Hopefully, this blog has provided you some insight into building that strategy – keep on building it, and until next time.

FAQ

Where Can I Find Good Cybersecurity Internships?

If you‘re searching for cybersecurity internships, your university is a great place to start. Talk to your career counselor, classmates, or professors regarding some opportunities and if that doesn‘t work, take your projects, conferences you‘ve been in, or experience from some books you‘ve read, and craft a unique approach to a company.

Why Should I Register for BreachDirectory Data Breach Notifications?

Consider registering for BreachDirectory data breach notifications because notifications will keep you sleeping soundly at night and allow you to know when your account has been compromised. If it hasn‘t been compromised, you will receive monthly alerts too.

What‘s a Good Way to Stand Out for Cybersecurity Internships?

To stand out when searching for cybersecurity internships, build projects using the BreachDirectory API or other tools, read books like Hacking MySQL: Breaking, Optimizing, and Securing MySQL for Your Use Case, as well as attend industry events like Database Frontiers – an upcoming conference about database availability, security, and performance.