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    Beginner's Guide to Information Security
    Beginner's Guide to Information Security
    Beginner's Guide to Information Security
    Ebook85 pages1 hour

    Beginner's Guide to Information Security

    By Limor Elbaz

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    About this ebook

    The Beginner’s Guide to Information Security offers insight and resources to help readers embark on a career in one of the 21st century’s most important—and potentially lucrative—fields. Maybe you want to move into information security from IT, say, from a developer or system administrator role. Or maybe you just graduated with your bachelor’s or master’s degree. Whatever your education or prior experience, this book can offer you a great start, with advice from real people who are working in the InfoSec field. 
    It starts off with some chapters that cover ways to learn about information security, maybe pick up a certification or two, find out about job opportunities, and then, hopefully, snag a job. The Beginner’s Guide also delves deeper into InfoSec topics, helping readers master key skills like knowing how to protect a network, respond to a security incident, and educate users so they’re part of the security solution—not the problem. The final chapters focus on “big picture” issues such as women in security, and where InfoSec may be heading in the future. 
    The book’s content has been crowdsourced from members of Peerlyst.com, the independent online community of InfoSec professionals. Peerlyst users share their real-world knowledge every day and build their reputation as experts in the security space. 
    Order the Beginner’s Guide to Information Security now to join them!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPeerlyst
    Release dateNov 9, 2016
    ISBN9781540131492
    Beginner's Guide to Information Security

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      Book preview

      Beginner's Guide to Information Security - Limor Elbaz

      Introduction

      By Limor Elbaz

      Information security is one of the most vitally important career sectors of the 21st century. The success and even the survival of governments, businesses, and individuals depend on it. It’s also a fascinating—and sometimes lucrative—way to make a living. But even as the world comes to recognize how essential InfoSec is, it’s still a relatively new field, and the paths leading into it are many—though not always well defined.

      Peerlyst’s first e-book, the Beginner’s Guide to Information Security, aims to cut through some of the confusion about how and where to start, moving you along the road to a successful career in the field. The content you’ll find here has been crowdsourced from members of the Peerlyst online community of InfoSec professionals. Many are longtime experts in some of the sectors that make up this varied field, others are relative newcomers who are eager to share the advice and resources they’ve found most valuable during their own career journeys.

      We begin with some chapters that cover ways you can learn about information security, maybe pick up a certification or two, find out about job opportunities, and then, hopefully, snag a job. Then we delve deeper into the InfoSec field, offering perspective and resources that will help you master key skills, like knowing how to protect a network, respond to a security incident, and educate users so they’re part of the security solution—not the problem. Our last chapters focus on big picture issues such as women in security (a topic close to my heart), and where InfoSec may be heading in the future.

      The Journey into InfoSec

      If you’re seriously looking to enter the security field, I won’t sugarcoat it: You’ll encounter some obstacles. It’s easy to learn coding these days, but it can be hard to get your first hands-on opportunities. In security, it’s even more complicated for beginners to get real-life experience. You can do some hacking, sure, but the chances to get involved in legitimate penetration testing are far less frequent. Finding a mentor is tough, given the manpower deficiency in the security space: Everyone is super busy. Accessing commercial products can be expensive, and training is too expensive as well—including most security conferences. In my view, you shouldn’t need pricey certification courses or conferences to become knowledgeable about security.

      But where can you learn? Even if you’ve already gotten a great education—say, a bachelor’s degree, or even a master’s—chances are that education taught you very little about pen testing, security hardening, monitoring, controls, compliance, etc. This guide can be a start to gaining that knowledge. There’s a lot of information here, as well as many guideposts pointing to other information security resources, including books, online courses, and websites.

      One of those is the Peerlyst site, which connects the InfoSec community so people can share their experiences and expertise—for free. So if you’re interested in security, come check us out. Our online community is all about removing knowledge barriers and sharing real-world information. You might learn some things, even find your tribe.

      If you’re already in the security trenches, Peerlyst wants to help you help others—and build your reputation for subject-matter expertise while you’re at it. When security pros work together and educate each other, people’s jobs get easier. And if advice from experts helps more newbies get involved in InfoSec, that will ease the pressure on those who are currently in the field—without compromising on the quality of education.

      I hope you find this Beginner’s Guide both useful and inspiring. And as you continue your journey, I hope to see you online at peerlyst.com!

      Limor Elbaz is the founder and CEO of Peerlyst, Inc. To hear more from Limor, follow her on Twitter @LimorElbaz, or check out her page on Peerlyst.

      Chapter One

      Thirteen Steps for Starting Your InfoSec Journey

      By Tracy Z. Maleeff

      People have varied motivations for getting into information security. Some see it as a gold rush, and want to head to where the money is right now. Others consider it a calling, a perfect blend of their interests and skills. Then there are those who just fell into it accidentally, maybe by drawing the short straw and getting told that they’re now in charge of security. Regardless of how you get your foot in the door, a journey into information security begins with the first step. For those of you contemplating those early steps, let this chapter serve as your guidepost. I’m not an InfoSec expert—in fact, I’m still technically a newbie—but my background in library and information science makes me good at unearthing information and savoring teachable moments. So in that spirit, I’d like to pass along some of what I’ve learned.

      Get a CISSP! If I had a dollar for every time that piece of InfoSec advice was dispensed to me, well, I’d have a CISO’s salary. A CISSP, pronounced like sis-pea, is a certification administered by (ISC)² and stands for certified information systems security professional. When starting out in InfoSec, you quickly learn that certificates—certs, as they are lovingly called—are viewed by many as a necessary evil to getting a job in the industry. The problem with being told thousands of times to just get a CISSP is that getting that particular cert requires a minimum of 5 years cumulative paid full-time work experience in two or more of the 8 domains of the (ISC)² CISSP CBK®. Then you’ll actually need to take the exam, which has about a 70 percent passing rate, and maintain certification. There are costs associated with all this. (For instance, the 2016 examination pricing can be found here.)

      Are you getting a little stressed out? That’s normal.

      There’s

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