essam:~$
~/story

$ ./start --story

[ ok ] profile loaded

$ whoami

Essam El-Dakak

$ cat mission.txt

Cybersecurity leader who helps organisations turn security findings into clear decisions.

$ ./story --chapters 4

Scroll to begin

Essam El-Dakak in a navy suit with his arms crossed, in front of a window overlooking Vienna
AI-modified portrait

$ cd ~/today

What I do today

I lead Service Management for the whole Cyber Defense Center at CANCOM Austria and am accountable for every service it delivers, from monitoring and threat intelligence to vulnerability management and purple teaming.

Customers ask me to weigh their options and trade-offs and to coordinate the work across teams. As a leader, I try to make my teams autonomous and help people recognise their potential.

  • Monitoring
  • Threat intelligence
  • Vulnerability management
  • Purple teaming

$ cd ~/career

Career

I started in software development in 2012 and moved into security in 2019 to help organisations become more secure.

  1. 2008–2012 BSc Computer Science University of Vienna
  2. 2012–2017 Software Engineer and Team Lead Accenture, Vienna and Berlin
  3. 2017–2019 Software Development Solution Architect Unisys, Vienna
  4. 2018–2020 MSc IT-Security FH Technikum Wien
  5. 2019–2022 IT-Security Solution Designer CANCOM Austria (formerly Kapsch BusinessCom), Cisco FireJumper
  6. 2022–2026 Manager, Cyber Defense Center CANCOM Austria
  7. 2024 CISSP (ISC)²
  8. 2025 GIAC GDSA SANS SEC530
  9. June 2026 Talk: How to react to the speed of attacks CANCOM and Cisco event Attacks aren't getting newer, they're getting faster. That's why the Time-Based Security model matters.
  10. Since October 2026 Senior Manager, Cyber Defense Center current CANCOM Austria
  11. Since October 2026 Executive MBA, Strategic Management & Technology in progress TU Wien, part-time

Software projects in banking, public-sector healthcare and steel.

$ cd ~/projects

Projects

Projects since 2022

  • Service Management for the Cyber Defense CenterBuilt the function from the ground up: service standard, role profiles, escalation paths and SLA governance.
  • Service reviews for CISOs and CIOsTurning what the SOC sees into risk statements they can act on.
  • Purple teamingCoordinating the red team, SOC analysts and customers, so findings become better detections and closed gaps.
  • Vulnerability prioritisationCombining CVSS, threat intelligence on exploitability and asset criticality.
  • Disaster-recovery exercises and tabletopsRun together with customers.
  • Training and certification roadmapSANS and vendor tracks for my teams.
  • Security automation playbooksFor mail quarantine, impossible-travel alerts, phishing response and automated firewall blocks.

Security solution design, 2019–2022

  • Endpoint security tender
  • Firewall and network segmentation projects
  • Data loss prevention (DLP) project
  • Proxy architecture design
  • Network security monitoring (NSM) architecture design
Essam El-Dakak sitting in a leather armchair in front of a window overlooking Vienna
AI-modified portrait

$ cd ~/contact

Let's talk

Send me an email.

essam [at] eldakak.at