Starting a Career in Cybersecurity (and Succeed!)
Cybersecurity is an attractive field that generates interest in many people, but most of them struggle at first to found how to start, what can be required knowledge, do i need to know programming, etc.
In this short article i am going to try to solve in a fast way some of the most common questions.
To start, is very important to have in mind that Cybersecurity is a huge field, with a lot of shades and possibilities; one of the most important decisions to make is in what team do you want to work according with your preferences:
a. Blue Team (Defensive Team against the malicious actors)
b. Red Team (Offensive Team that detects Vulnerabilities and Weakness)
c. Purple Team (A mix of Red and Blue Teams)
Once you decide, the good news is: Foundational knowledge is almost the same for any of the teams you want to be in!; this knowledge allows you to work in any of the fields you decide.
I separate the foundational knowledge by areas:
- Basic required knowledge
- Operating Systems to work with
- Tools
- Scripting languages (Python will be my recommendation to start)
- Abilities / Attitude (The most important subject in my opinion)
I publish a video talking about this: https://youtu.be/WwkpJCIzS-U
More good news: to find this critical knowledge there are tons of FREE and amazing resources in places like:
- YouTube: So many great channels to select, but i am starting a Career in Cybersecurity playlist, so you can found it here: (My English Channel: https://bit.ly/3V5nQdI — Spanish Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/DavidPereira)
- Harvard University: https://pll.harvard.edu/catalog
- MIT Free Courses Catalog: https://ocw.mit.edu/search/
Let’s start in this article with the Basic required knowledge:
- Computing Concepts, including how Cloud Works and How Containers Works.
- Operating Systems concepts and important commands (Windows and Linux Workstations and Servers)
- Networking Concepts (OSI Model, TCP/IP Model, Topological Structure )
- Web Protocols
- Algorithms (You don't need to be a developer, but is useful to understand the logic and the flow of an application or service)
That’s the foundational part; of course there are more important knowledge that i am not mentioning, but we need to start in some point, right?.
Lets talk now about the recommended Operating Systems:
In Blue Team distros we have:
- Security Onion: Linux Distro that can be useful in the defensive and threat detection matter: https://securityonionsolutions.com/software/
In Red Team distros (Ethical Hacking and Pentesting) we have a lot; some of the most well known:
- Kali Linux: Penetration testing / Ethical Hacking Distro: https://www.kali.org/get-kali
- Black Arch: https://blackarch.org/
- Parrot OS: https://www.parrotsec.org/download/
In DFIR (Digital Forensics and Incident Response) we have:
- CAINE: http://www.caine-live.net/
In Malware Analysis we have:
- REMnux: https://remnux.org/
There are a lot of more distros; some people just take a base operating system like Ubuntu https://ubuntu.com/download and just install the tools they want or need; (The most of the Distros are using Ubuntu as Core).
For a next article i am going to talk about the next part: Tools you need to master, based in your career selection.
I wish this article can be useful, and as I mention is the first of a series, I hope.
If you want to know more about the different areas in Cybersecurity and the services that can be provided, take a look to our Website: https://secpro.llc and visit our community area, with free resources: https://secpro.llc/community/