Want to become a Security Engineer? Learn Networking First
In this post, we'll explore why network engineers make excellent security engineers.
Weather your new to the industry, or a seasoned professional. You may have noticed, that most security engineers was once network engineers. Which means that security engineer went from configuring and managing routers and switches. To protecting the network from cyber threats and security breaches. If your not familiar with networking or security, this move in ones career may seem like big pivot. But its actually not, you often hear me say that networking and security goes hand in hand. I remember being, asked earlier in my career. What position do I saw myself doing. My response back then was I wanted to become a security professional or pen tester. The person I was talking to said something that day that stuck with me forever. They said well Mike, you can secure a network if you don't know how a network operates. Needless to say I ended up in networking. Without further delay, let's explore why network engineers make excellent security engineers.
Foundational Knowledge
One key reason network engineers make great security engineers, is their strong foundational knowledge. When going down the network path your introduced into a lot of terms and technologies. Different protocols, network topologies, device configurations. This all goes into the making of a network engineer. Understanding the network is key in this position. Knowing how data flows and troubleshooting network issues, shortens the learning curve when you switch from network to security. Things like access control list, ACLs is learned in networking and used a lot in networking. This is also used on the security side of the house with being able to control who has access to what part of the network. You cant just let everyone have access to everything.
Awareness:
As a network engineer your able to identify abnormal network behavior. This abnormal behavior could be a security breach or it could a device issue you never know. Their able to spot this out because, most networking departments will have the tools needed to monitor their network. Most will also now what their network baseline is and how the network behaves on a normal day. Things like knowing that network is a little slow during shift change, because everyone is logging into their pcs. All of the above will make the transition to security easier for someone coming from networking. The security team will most likely have similar processes and similar tools.
Proactive Security Mindset:
Being proactive instead of reactive. That's what its all about. In networking and security that doesn't change. For the network engineer there already in that mindset so once the transition happens. The only change is, now your going from making sure the network is up and running to preventing breaches..
Close Collaboration:
Network engineers will often work with a Security teams. This may be to solve an issue, or implement a change. Working close together gives the network engineer a good understanding of, how networking and security intersect.
Making the transition:
If your currently in networking and would like to transition into a security role. You may want to consider the following
- Getting a security certification like the Security+
- Looking into some firewall certifications
- Speaking with the security manager to see if they have any requirements
It could be that they don't require anything, if your already on the networking side. Or maybe they use Palo Alto firewalls, then this could be a requirement that they have.
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