[8][9] Malan enrolled at Harvard College, initially studying government, and took CS50 in the fall of 1996, which was taught by Brian Kernighan at the time.

After a period working outside of academia, he returned to postgraduate studies to complete a Master of Science degree in 2004, followed by a PhD in 2007 for research into cybersecurity and computer forensics, supervised by Michael D.

[22] Prior to teaching at Harvard, Malan taught mathematics and computer science at Franklin High School and Tufts University.

[23] While undergoing his undergraduate studies, Malan worked part-time for the District Attorney's Office in Middlesex County, Virginia as a forensic investigator, after which he founded his own two startups.

[22] Malan worked for Mindset Media from 2008 to 2011 as Chief Information Officer (CIO), where he was responsible for advertising the network’s scalability, security, and capacity-planning.