If you are reading articles on this site, it is likely that you are an Infosec professional.
Now notice that I didn't say that you work in Information Technology, I said you are an Infosec professional. We are quite lucky to work in such a field where we really identify ourselves with our profession.
Whether we're support technicians, operators, managers, directors or even CISO's, we are first Infosec professionals.
So what is an Infosec professional? Like the Samurai or the Knights of the Round Table, we're really warriors, we're soldiers in a battle of good vs. not-so-good. We craft our skills, we increase our knowledge, we strive to be better than those who might do our Enterprises harm, breach our castle walls and loot our treasures of data and services.
We really work in a field where we must continuously improve, continuously stay on our toes. We must constantly assess, reassess, quantify, categorize, watch logs, review alerts, and respond with as much skill and expertise as we can, in order to combat and remediate the constant threat.
We find ourselves engaged in reading blogs like this one - seeking out that extra little nugget of knowledge that we might put in our pocket - one that might come in handy in a pinch. We seek to deepen our knowledge so that we can be more effective in applying not just a technical fix, but a real strategy, like building layers of moats around our castles.
It's really a pleasure to get paid to do something most of us would probably do for free. So as we strive to improve our battle skills, our strategic military vision, we must take full advantage of the vast resources at our disposal.
Join the ISSA, ISACA, Infragard, OWASP - join Toastmasters or your local Kiwanis. Read constantly - books and blogs and whitepapers. Attend security conferences. Do all you can to be all you can as an Infosec Professional.
Considering the endless number of teenagers sitting at home trying to learn how to hack, who someday might look to breach your castle walls, it is your duty, really to all our collective benefit, to be the best Infosec Professional you can be.
This is my first article on Infosec Island - I look forward to learning from you as well as offering some sage advice from my twenty years of experience in private security, law enforcement, Information Security, and the martial arts.
We are ultimately all brothers and sisters in the honorable fight to protect those who depend on us, on our skills, on integrity, and our ability to end the day safe. I am proud to serve next to you on that battlefield.
