8 tips for a standout security analyst resume
Employers increasingly expect to see hands-on experience, says Keatron Evans,
principal security researcher at security education provider InfoSec. “Have you
done packet capture analysis? Can you understand and parse logs or done incident
response in the cloud? It’s important to have that kind of demonstrable hands-on
experience verbalized in a resume,” he says. The expectation is high because
even if you haven’t held a security analyst job, hands-on experience can be
acquired in other ways today, such as training exercises offered by companies
like InfoSec, Immersive Labs, and Pluralsight. “Before, training was mostly
certificate-driven—it wasn’t geared toward proving you can do these things,”
Evans says. “Now there’s simulation in the training environment, which is
turning into a good gateway to get your foot in the door.” If candidates can
send a five-minute screen capture of themselves performing a task, “it’s worth
more than a thousand words,” Evans says. Capture-the-flag (CTF) events are
another highlight to include. If you’ve placed well in a well-known CTF or
completed a penetration test, put that at the top of the resume as well, he
says.
Reducing Cloud Infrastructure Complexity
Organizations the world over are indeed struggling with unnecessarily
complicated multi-cloud environments. Validating the global struggle, Enterprise
Strategy Group recently conducted a global survey of 1,257 IT decision makers at
enterprise and midmarket organizations using both public cloud infrastructure
and modern on-premises private cloud environments. The results hit home, and
really do cement the notion that this cloud fragmentation is getting worse as
time goes on - and that there are many companies out there who are seeking a
‘savior’ toolset to get a zoomed-out view of policies, compliance, security and
cost optimization. An unsurprising outcome of the survey is that there is a
clear value in cloud management - yet even knowing said value, organizations are
struggling with implementation. A mere 5% used consolidated cloud management
tools extensively on premise, or across public and/or private cloud. This
despite a burgeoning marketplace of all in one solutions like VMWare VRealize
Suite, Flexera CMP, Cloudbolt, and others.
Distributed SQL Takes Databases to the Next Level
Distributed SQL is a relational database win-win. The technology’s innovations
are based on lessons learned over the past thirty or so years to deliver true
dynamic elasticity. The modern benefits of dynamic elasticity include the
ability to add or remove nodes simply, quickly, and on-demand. The approach is
self-managing, able to automatically rebalance nodes or rebalance data within
those nodes while maintaining extremely high continuous availability (i.e.,
automatic failover). And of course, the approach includes all of the features
that make relational databases so powerful, like the ability to use standard SQL
(including JOINs) and to maintain ACID compliance. A distributed SQL option like
MariaDB’s Xpand is architected for all nodes to work together to form a single
logical and distributed database that all applications can point to, regardless
of the intended use case. Whether a business needs a three-node cluster for
modest workloads or hundreds, even thousands, of nodes for unlimited
scalability, distributed SQL means deployments can grow or shrink on demand.
Singularity Is Fast Approaching, and It Will Happen First in the Metaverse
To elaborate on this point more, If we think about it, we have had mainframe
computers that evolved to personal computers, which then evolved to mobile
devices. In the case of the metaverse however, the leap or the iteration does
not necessarily go to a faster device. Instead, to virtual simulations of
virtual worlds and virtual environments where through VR and AR, we can finally
make it possible to buy things in the real world through these environments.
But, in particular, also to buy things that just happen to exist in these
virtual environments. Connecting computers to the internet has catapulted them
to mainstream use and marked the beginning of the dot-com era, and the last 15
years were clearly shaped by the mobile phone, which led to full mass adoption.
This makes the metaverse a very practical concept. It's not just VR concerts, 3D
gatherings or digital assets, the metaverse is an idea that brings these
concepts together and tries to explain how they are all connected. Matthew Ball,
an outspoken proponent of the metaverse, has outlined a few key ideas that show
what this evolved form of the internet will look like.
Data Science Is Becoming More Tool-Oriented. Will It Kill The Science Behind?
My other concern is that the number of tools you can use might be considered
more important than your data science knowledge. This situation leads to data
scientists being evaluated based on tool knowledge, not science. If this
happens, it will be a serious problem. Software tools are just there for
turning ideas into action or value. The ideas come from data scientists who
blend analytical thinking, creativity, statistics, and theory. If data
scientists are forced to learn as many tools as possible, they might miss the
point. They will get very quick at performing tasks thanks to the highly
advanced tools. However, this is not enough for creating value out of data.
What leads to creating value is first to define a problem that can be solved
with data. Once a problem is defined and a solution is designed, the tools are
then needed to do the tasks. I think you would agree that without a problem
and solution, there is no use for advanced software tools. To sum up, we
definitely need software tools and packages to perform data science. They
enable us to work with large amounts of data quickly and efficiently.
Cybercriminals Target Alibaba Cloud for Cryptomining, Malware
Targeting of Alibaba is on the rise thanks to a few unique features of the
service, researchers noted, and the way that cloud instances can be
configured. “The default Alibaba ECS instance provides root access,” according
to the analysis. “With Alibaba, all users have the option to give a password
straight to the root user inside the virtual machine (VM).” This is in
contrast to how other cloud service providers architect their storage access,
researchers pointed out. In most cases, the principle of least privilege is
front and center, with different options such as not allowing Secure Shell
(SSH) authentication over user and password, or allowing asymmetric
cryptography authentication. That way, if cyberattackers gain credentials,
entering with only low-privilege access would require them to make an
“enhanced effort” to escalate the privileges, according to Trend Micro: “Other
cloud service providers do not allow the user to log in via SSH directly by
default, so a less privileged user is required.”
The difference between insights, actionable information and intelligent data
Insight might ultimately stem from data, but that doesn’t mean data – or even
‘intelligent’ data – should be conflated with insight. They aren’t the same
thing. That’s not to say that adding intelligence to data isn’t important, of
course. After all, raw and unprocessed data can only gain value once we’ve
added intelligence – once we have, in other words, annotated and quantified
that data. This principle is, of course, magnified in the context of what’s
known as ‘big data’, which I generally take to mean datasets that must be
measured in terms of gigabytes and exabytes. Through the use of machine
learning, it’s possible to add intelligence to this kind of massive dataset
through annotating it with sentiment, emotions, topics, and other useful
variables. ... As we ascend our knowledge pyramid, it’s easy to see how one
might confuse actionable information with true insight. Nonetheless, there is
an important distinction between the two terms, especially when it comes to
their respective relationships to long-term strategy.
What is Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM)?
A CIAM system typically resides in the cloud and operates under a
software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. It relies on built-in connectors and APIs
to tie together various enterprise applications, systems, and data
repositories. This makes it possible to combine features, including customer
registration, account management, directory services, and authentication. When
a customer visits a website or calls in, for example, the CIAM solution
handles the authentication process (using a password, single sign-on,
biometrics, or multiple factors, for example). It’s also adept at juggling
different protocols, including SAML, OpenID Connect, OAuth and FIDO. Once a
customer signs in, it’s possible to place an order, track delivery, update a
user profile, and handle other account-related tasks. Another benefit of CIAM
is that it delivers risk-based authentication (RBA), which is sometimes
referred to as adaptive authentication. This means that a system can look for
signs and signals -- such as a user’s IP address, User-Agent HTTP headers, the
date and time of access, and other factors
Researchers Spot Comeback of the Emotet Botnet
The development is concerning but not surprising for those fighting
large-scale botnets. Emotet and Trickbot were essentially run by different
departments of one cybercriminal organization that's based in Russia, says
Alex Holden, CISO of Hold Security, a Wisconsin-based security consultancy
that studies the cybercriminal underground. Researchers have long noticed
close associations, with Emotet distributing Trickbot and vice versa. Both
have been linked to distribution of ransomware including Ryuk and Conti. "We
knew that it [Emotet] would come back," Holden says. "It was a matter of time.
But it may signal more battles are ahead. Emotet was the "biggest and baddest"
botnet before it was taken down, says James Shank, senior security evangelist
and chief architect, Community Services with Team Cymru. A new version of
Emotet is being distributed by Trickbot, says Marcus Hutchins, a malware
researcher with Kryptos Logic who is also part of Cryptolaemus, a notable
group of top security researchers and systems administrators dedicated to
fighting Emotet. Emotet's return will likely will eventually mean greater
distribution of ransomware.
Council Post: Building Human-In-The-Loop Systems
Human-in-the-loop systems are essentially about providing this context to AI
models. This context could be in various terms. It includes removing bias from
models so they adhere to ethical standards, providing situational awareness
information to improve predictions or dispensing a final oversight before a
decision is made. Context is also the AI system providing context to the human
being for further action. When this critical piece of information is missing, it
leads to what is popularly known as “the black box problem” where the users
don’t really understand how the model has churned data and arrived at a
decision. Given the fact that algorithms are driving parts of our lives now with
their use in driving cars, giving product recommendations, making investment
decisions and even predicting employee attrition, it is becoming integral for
stakeholders to understand and trust these AI operations. The key to designing a
successful human-in-the-loop system is solving this challenge of two-way
communication of context.
Quote for the day:
"A lot of people have gone farther than
they thought they could because someone else thought they could." --
Zig Zigler
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