“I really appreciated the case studies and simple solutions in each lesson in my Networking Academy study.”
Disaster strikes
Antonius’ introduction to technology came about because of a disaster. “In 2005, there was an earthquake and tsunami on Nias Island,” he says.
“Many teams from outside Indonesia came with sophisticated equipment to search for victims under the rubble. As an islander who had never seen a computer or sophisticated equipment, this amazed me and motivated me to master this technology so that it can be used to help others.”
His path to doing so was not easy. When Antonius found himself jobless and unable to feed his young family, he went door-to-door setting-up internet connections at people’s homes.
He attributes his experience doing well to Cisco Networking Academy.
Facing problems
Seeing his job as a Network Engineer as being a problem-solver, Antonius was put to the test in one of his first jobs after studying.
“In 2014, I started working as a network engineer in a large organization,” he says. “It went well until 2019, when I began to find many irregularities in the flow of computer systems and networks. I thought that it was a virus and that antivirus software was the answer.”
“But the same thing kept happening and the system often experienced blackouts and overheating.”
Eventually, Antonius realized the system had been hacked. “I gave every document stored in the database a digital signature,” he says. The documents were not supposed to be reproduced, but Antonius found a document with the signature elsewhere.
Solving problems
“I came to the conclusion that the system had been violated by outsiders,” he says. “The solution I provided was to set up the system and network from scratch.”
It may have been daunting to build a new network for a large organization, but Antonius fell back on his Networking Academy studies and his work as a teaching assistant. “I had experience in analyzing networks when I was a teaching assistant on campus,” he says, “and I applied the same thing at work.”
Securing the system
Antonius continues to apply that knowledge in his current work. “Our main role is to build secure IT infrastructure and networks,” he says. “The Networking Academy projects are examples of building good infrastructure so that the projects I work on now are safer and more efficient.”
“I am very grateful to the Indonesian government, especially the Ministry of Communication and Informatics,” says Antonius. “It has opened up opportunities for me to learn a lot through the Cisco Networking Academy program, especially in the world of security systems. At the conclusion of the training, I was able to limit the flow of usage and stop attacks from intruders into our network. Thanks, Cisco.”
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