It is about skill, and how you communicate.
I am impressed Maboroshi warned you about malware/career path.
You have to remember most people are not that deep. They only see the internet as a 'right' and not a privilege. They expect to press a power button and be instantly connected to the world wide web. Try explaining FTP, HTTP, SMTP/POP/IMAP - and you lose many people. Try explaining malware, viruses, trojans - and people will only ask "hey can you get in to my girlfriend's email account?"
People are not deep.
People will also view what they do not understand with FUD - Fear, Uncertainty, and Despair. "Fear" - "Oh, she might crash our network if we let her experiment "(or just your luck, their network did crash - "She must have done it!"), Uncertainty - "She might be one of those .. Black Hatters from DefCon?!", or Despair - "She is criminal! She only wants to break things!"
In college, I was not well regarded by other students. I set the grading curve very high - scoring 100 to 99% on every IT/CIS exam - so every student that did the middling 70 to 60% score failed (which was half the class) I was lucky to be known by 2 experienced teachers who understood the depth of my knowledge and wisdom in IT (been online since 1987). The other teachers always squinted their eyes and held their breath if I raised my hand in class. The one teacher had me put on a hacking demonstration for the new IT/CIS class entering college. To show the student the exciting side of computing, she used me to put on a 'show'.
I would use the overhead projector to show what I could do on the computer. I would demonstrate simple cracking (retrieving windows screensaver pwd) to complex cracking (bruteforcing a 4 digit pwd for a software), then I would fire up a packetsniffer to sniff the segment - if any students in the class (which all had a computer ) were bored with my presentation and decided to chat or surf the net to check their email - I grepped their logins and chat conversations live - I replayed a AIM conversation, and exposed a plaintext login for tripod or some similar email host. That got everyone's attention. I think I also did email headers, email spoofing off a open port 25 sending email as if it came from the president@whitehouse.gov . It was exciting.
Other teachers regarded me with fear or suspicion.
I blew a job opportunity by emailing a thank you letter off a open smtp port rather than use a proper email host. Trying to impress, I made them afraid of my ethics.
I have never used a CC or taken data. I have read emails, files, and images. I am just a witness.
In short, do try to present yourself as normal as possible. Companies want to hire employees that are 'dumb'. Trainable. model clay. They just want you to build a node, connect it, keep segments running, backup servers, and all that boring shit. Pretend thats all you care about.
I do encourage that you try for InfoSec certifications - they will lend a bit of legitimacy to any study you do toward malware.
Build your own lab, this is where you will learn how malware works.
We do have a backroom/VIP section for students we are impressed with. Girls allowed.
DNR
I love to learn.
