InfoSec Jobs thread

For someone not in the sec area of IT, I would find it very useful to get an idea of other people's route to sec in terms of prior roles/qualifications/certs as well as what your current role entails. A seperate thread may suffice.

I hope other infosec profesionals who frequent this board won't mind if I say infosec is not rocket science and the requirements for moving into security roles are not as advanced as one may think. InfoSec people are often described as being IT ninjas and for many that is the case, but for us and this has been the case anywhere else I worked when we were looking for sec people, all we really wanted was someone with a good grounding in IT principles and a genuine interest or passion for security. Any competent Sys Admin should easily get into security as all/most of the skills are transferrable. A sys admin will already be experienced in doing vulnerability assessments, patch management, system hardening, and scripting which comes in handy, and firewalling on a systems level. Likewise a competent network engineer will be familiar with network principles, CLI-access to network devices, configuration changes etc. and hardware-based firewalls as well. I've worked with firewall specialists who didnt consider themselves security people.

My route to where I am now started in tech support, removing viruses, configuring consumer firewalls and troubleshooting. From there I became a Linux Sys Admin, from there IT Security Specialist doing vulnerability assessments, Sys Admin'ing the security infrastructure, patch management Incident Handling and software developement(scripting) etc, then to InfoSec Analyst for Red Hat, again all the same duties, to here where I do Pen Testing, Incident Handling, Sys admin of Security infrastructure and SIM deployment(which is Linux-based). For large parts of my job a Linux Power user with a passion for security would be ideal.

We are looking for everything from low-level SOC analysts to Senior Security consultants, firewall and load balancer specialists. If you have the core skills, we can teach you or train you on the rest. Most other security positions in Ireland on the same. Its amazing the number of people we interview who are fuzzy on the OSI model. Don't get public key cryptography and freak out when asked about the Linux shell. I am not exaggerating here.

Reading back, this post is may be not suited to this thread. For a career in IT, the number one thing you need is an interest in IT, because to be good you will need to spend some of your spare time reading and upskilling. The same is true for a career in IT Security. If you have the interest and the curiosity, you can break into the area very easily.

A question I like to ask candidates is "Tell me about your network at home". If they have a genuine interest they will have a couple of systems knocking around. My current home network is pretty pathetic because half my gear is still in the Czech Republic, but I still have a shell server, a media server and 2 linux-based laptops(3 if you count my work laptop).

moneymad wrote: »

Aren't all those jobs just glorified sales people? Seen so many poxy security jobs offered lately.

moneymad wrote: »

I'm serious.

Ok... Can you elaborate?

Ok so we are urgently looking for a firewall specialist, enterprise level experience with vendors such as Checkpoint, Cisco - Tuffin would be an advantage.

I don't have an official job spec yet, but if you are interested send your CV to me at acourt@integritysolutions.ie and feel free to PM me with any questions you may have.

moc moc a moc wrote: »

wat



Any chance the problem is how you're advertising? Anyone with a bit of cop on and some prior security experience is probably already working in the industry and on decent money. If you're advertising e.g. a junior position paying under €30k (or worse, not even specifying a salary) then naturally you're going to have to sift through a good few muppets and chancers.

You've hit the nail on the head there. Everyone decent is already taken and happy where they are and on decent money.

missyver wrote: »

Any jobs outside of Ireland? Preferably in the midlands or west of Ireland

Last I checked, the midlands and west of Ireland are in Ireland. Has there been some political upheaval in the last few hours?

There are some Pen Test positions in Waterford I've heard of.