We’re big believers in supporting our team’s growth, because when our people develop, our clients benefit too. Whether that’s through industry certifications, new technologies, or further study, we’re always proud to see our team expanding their skills.
Recently, Andrei, one of our Drupal developers, completed a Masters in Information Systems & Cyber Security with the University of Chichester. This was a great personal achievement that also strengthens our collective focus on keeping clients’ websites secure. We gave him the opportunity to reflect on the course and its interplay with work via some questions...
How has studying Cyber Security influenced the way you work?
The course reinforced the importance of thinking about security beyond just code or infrastructure. In my role as a Drupal developer, I now approach projects with a more holistic mindset—considering not only secure coding practices but also risks introduced by third-party modules, integrations, and hosting environments.
The course has helped me become more security-aware in every stage of development. I now build with security in mind—following best practices, writing clean, maintainable code, and ensuring configurations are safe by default. When evaluating contributed modules or custom integrations, I apply the frameworks learned during the course to assess potential vulnerabilities before deployment. It also strengthened my understanding of compliance-related practices, which is useful when supporting clients with PCI or GDPR requirements.
Did your day-to-day work at ComputerMinds help you get more out of the course?
Working on real-world Drupal projects has given me practical insight into the challenges of securing complex content management systems. Seeing firsthand how sites can be exposed through misconfigured modules, outdated dependencies, or external services made the theoretical concepts from the course much more tangible.
It helped me connect my dissertation research on external cybersecurity risks to day-to-day development tasks—like monitoring module updates, assessing third-party integrations, and managing client environments securely.
What do you think ComputerMinds already does well when it comes to cyber security?
ComputerMinds has a strong culture of secure development and client-focused risk management. The team takes care to follow best practices for Drupal security—regular updates, monitoring software components, and structured development workflows. I’ve also seen that security is embedded in our approach to client projects, which ensures sites are robust from day one.
During my course, the landscape shifted with growing threats from supply chain attacks, automated exploits, and cloud service vulnerabilities. ComputerMinds have shown how adaptable we are in responding to these evolving challenges. We ensure the development team are educated about new advisories, and maintain proactive development workflows that reduce exposure.
And what opportunities do you see for us to keep improving?
I’d like to help enhance our approach to external risks by implementing more structured monitoring and auditing. There’s also an opportunity to automate security checks within our development workflows, which could help catch potential vulnerabilities earlier and reduce manual overhead.
🎉 Celebrating learning and staying secure
We’re incredibly proud of Andrei for completing his Cyber Security studies, and for applying that expertise to his everyday work at ComputerMinds. This is just one example of our drive to continually learn, collaborate, and of course: build secure, reliable, and future-ready web solutions.
Here’s to celebrating growth — and to keeping our clients’ sites safer than ever.