Current Trends in Cyber-security (week 1: Intro)

This blog came about from a class I took (CIS 608 – Information Security Management) at Bellevue which had a requirement that students maintain a blog throughout the 12-week course. For purposes of the class, students were required to write at least on blog each week and the topic would be anything the student fancied; so long as it had some relevance in the Information Security realm. While the blog was to be maintained during the course, the professor’s recommended students to keep posting blogs beyond the 12 weeks as the goal behind the blog was more than to simply get a passing grade for the class. If you were to do a Google search for blog (inurl:blog) you get 551 million results and if you narrow your search to information security blogs (inurl:blog inurl:information security), the results decrease to about 44k; this shows the prevalence of blogs on the net. Unfortunately, I did not drink the kool-aid as prescribed by the professors and have not posted much since my last class. Just like many of my classmates (I believe) sometimes life takes a hold of many things and the work-school-life balance evades us.

Blogs are a way for people to express their views and share their thoughts with the world and in most cases, indulge in debates through comments. I for one have found blogs to be a tremendous source of information especially when writing papers for class and researching work related tasks and projects.  

Figure 1: courtesy of reddit.com (stack overflow)

Figure 1 (courtesy of reddit.com) shows how much information posted on the Internet helps out a lot of students, and the work force too. Many a times, I have been stuck working on an assignment or a project and through simple online searches, I find the information I need. The purpose of this blog is to mainly share thoughts I may have on a topic and in essence, help out anyone out there who may be scratching their head because of the issue; no need to re-invent the wheel, we are all in this together.

Just recently I was faced with the ‘tough’ decision of renewing my anti-virus subscription. As trivial as that sounds and without getting into too much debate on which one is better than which (it’s a preference thing in my opinion), I found multiple blogs providing some insightful views. It is my goal and hope that the topics I post on this blog will provide some guidance to someone out there especially when it comes to information security. The materials will (and should) be backed up by references from industry experts whose opinion will provide that extra nudge when conveying a thought.

So, who am I anyway?

I consider myself to be your regular chip off the old block lad who is just passionate about information security and is always on the lookout for the next ‘fancy’ attack vector. I actually never started out wanting to venture into the information security domain (maybe because I didn’t know about it). I was more inclined into networking and more IT leaning, but after being introduced to security, I was sold. Yes, it sounded like it would be straight out of the War Games script and my blood started racing thinking about it, only to be met with logs …they never told me I would be looking at log-lines. Sigh!

My first information security job was with an MSSP and as an analyst, we would review logs and events and report those anomalies to clients. While the job sounds boring and mundane, I did learn a lot from doing it. I believe every security professional needs to have some log analysis know-how; we all need to put in log analysis time before we move on to the ‘sexier’ red team Vs. blue team exercises as depicted in Mr. Robot (if you haven’t watched it... please do).

I consider myself to still be a rookie in this industry and appreciate the vast opportunities and career paths that it affords us. In addition to a bachelor’s degree, I have 2 certifications both from CompTIA (Sec+ and CASP). I am all for certifications but also against it when it is simply done to advance career-wise, without the recipient fully grasping the concepts; everyone wants to have knowledgeable colleagues after all. I am currently pursuing my Masters in Cyber-security and after that, I will tackle another Certification or 2 based on the role(s) I will have for work by then.

I truly hope my blog will make an impact in your security life and at the very least help you get an idea on how to tackle that assignment that is due in an hour.