how to be employed at the soc of tomorrow... today

Ryan Kovar – Staff Security Strategist

Splunk

How to be employed at the SOC of tomorrow… today.

How to be employed in the SOC of tomorrow… Today

• 17 years of cyber security experience

• Worked in US/UK Public Sector and DOD most recently in nation state hunting roles

• Enjoys clicking too fast, long walks in the woods, and data visualization

• Current role on Security Practice team focuses on incident/breach response, threat intelligence, and research

• Currently interested in automating methods to triage data collection for IR analyst review.

• Also investigating why printers are so insubordinate ಠ_ಠ

2

Staff Security Strategist

Minster of the OODAloopers

@meansec

Ryan Kovar: CISSP, MSc(Dist)


- Where we come from

- Where are we today

- Changes

- Tomorrow

- Conclusion

Agenda


How did we I get here…


- 5000+ users

- 20+ servers

- 5732 feet of cat 5

- Way too many printer repairs

System Administrator


- Contractor with NCIS/SOCA

- Unix SysAdmin

- Database security

- Baby’s first development

Systems Engineer


- Created a SOC/NOC

- Moved into fulltime Security

- Dealt with incident handling and compliance

- So many audits… so many.

- SOX SOX SOX SOX SOX SOX PCI

Security Engineer


- 100% nationstate hunting focus

- 2/3 R&D 1/3 analysis

- Much fun.

“Senior Principal” Security Engineer


- Research

- Development

- Hunting with customers

- Building things

Staff Security Strategist


Where can we go today?


But times they are a changing


I’m not hear to spread FUD, but…


- High Cost of Labor- Small Pool of Workers- Great Need


Hypothesis: Cyber Security roles will

greatly shrink in the next 10 years


How can you prepare for tomorrow… today


Learn basic development skills


Learn Statistics


Learn to communicate


Learn to be curious


Conclusions


- Our field is not a special snowflake

- The need for cybersecurity analysts and engineers greatly outstrips available pool of qualified personnel

- Businesses will figure out a way to fill the skill gap… with robots.

Historically good times turn to bad times


- You can’t expect to work in this world and not learn how to deal with overwhelming amounts of data

- There is a plethora of free or cheap learning tools

- Volunteering is good for the community and your CV

Professional Development is gooooood


Speak better. Write more gooder.

how to be employed at the soc of tomorrow... today

Presentations & Public Speaking