Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

Anxst · 05-24-2011, 04:55 AM

Thanks, Martian.

I know I need to start at the bottom. I do not have anywhere near the experience with incident response or real situations needed to move straight into the world of Security.

I know networking is the key to finding positions. I would have loved to go to DefCon to make some contacts (or DerbyCon, actually), but there's no way I can afford that. Heck, if I don't find a job before DerbyCon starts, I'm not sure how we'll be paying rent.

While I fully realize that PenTesting is romanticized, and I may never get there, I need a goal to shoot for. I figured I would aim for the top, and see where I can go. Now I just need to find the first rung on the ladder.

I know bash pretty well. I'm okay scripting in Perl and Python. The code is never pretty, but it gets things done. This, for example. I've never looked into C++, other than attempting to figure out what other people's code does, but I know enough x86 Assembly to actually write really simple programs, so walking through a buffer overflow isn't an issue. I've been a linux user at home for years, and have done things like set up an FTP and Apache server on home networks. I was the Linux admin for this year's CCDC team at my tech school, and we took third in the state. I'm proud to say I kept the red team out of our CentOS FTP box for 6 hours, and they never got into our Ubuntu Splunk server at all.

It's nice to hear the degree wasn't a total waste of time. I learned all my Perl scripting in school, and taught myself Python over the last few months. I had a great teacher who pushed me into learning TCP/IP to the point that I feel like I can make a Snort rule to find nearly anything, while on the other side using Scapy to fling packets right past most Snort rules. I'm good with Cisco ASAs, and can do basic switch and router configs. I couldn't do any of that before school, so it was time well spent.

I'll keep looking. Having never made more than 14 dollars an hour, I'm not afraid of help desk positions. I just need to find one, and there seem to be precious few IT shops, outside education and insurance, in the Madison WI area. The education based IT shops all hire their own students for the most part (UW-Madison has a fair number of Comp Sci students) and the Insurance companies all outsource their basic IT staff. Only security and management are in-house.

Now I'm just rambling. Back to the job search! Any further thoughts from anyone would be lovely.

05-24-2011, 04:55 AM	#3 (permalink)
Anxst Condensing fact from the vapor of nuance. Location: Madison, WI	Thanks, Martian. I know I need to start at the bottom. I do not have anywhere near the experience with incident response or real situations needed to move straight into the world of Security. I know networking is the key to finding positions. I would have loved to go to DefCon to make some contacts (or DerbyCon, actually), but there's no way I can afford that. Heck, if I don't find a job before DerbyCon starts, I'm not sure how we'll be paying rent. While I fully realize that PenTesting is romanticized, and I may never get there, I need a goal to shoot for. I figured I would aim for the top, and see where I can go. Now I just need to find the first rung on the ladder. I know bash pretty well. I'm okay scripting in Perl and Python. The code is never pretty, but it gets things done. This, for example. I've never looked into C++, other than attempting to figure out what other people's code does, but I know enough x86 Assembly to actually write really simple programs, so walking through a buffer overflow isn't an issue. I've been a linux user at home for years, and have done things like set up an FTP and Apache server on home networks. I was the Linux admin for this year's CCDC team at my tech school, and we took third in the state. I'm proud to say I kept the red team out of our CentOS FTP box for 6 hours, and they never got into our Ubuntu Splunk server at all. It's nice to hear the degree wasn't a total waste of time. I learned all my Perl scripting in school, and taught myself Python over the last few months. I had a great teacher who pushed me into learning TCP/IP to the point that I feel like I can make a Snort rule to find nearly anything, while on the other side using Scapy to fling packets right past most Snort rules. I'm good with Cisco ASAs, and can do basic switch and router configs. I couldn't do any of that before school, so it was time well spent. I'll keep looking. Having never made more than 14 dollars an hour, I'm not afraid of help desk positions. I just need to find one, and there seem to be precious few IT shops, outside education and insurance, in the Madison WI area. The education based IT shops all hire their own students for the most part (UW-Madison has a fair number of Comp Sci students) and the Insurance companies all outsource their basic IT staff. Only security and management are in-house. Now I'm just rambling. Back to the job search! Any further thoughts from anyone would be lovely. __________________ Don't mind me. I'm just releasing the insanity pressure from my headvalves.