TAKING UP VIDEO WORK AGAIN

I think that one of the things that I’ve picked up while figuring out how to tread my path to my first real cybersecurity role is that having a YouTube channel can be a great asset. Not only can it demonstrate to potential employers that you know what you’re talking about, it can also make you good at explaining things to other people.

Explaining things to other people doesn’t take a YouTube video, but it can be the fuel for getting that sort of thing done. That’s what I’ve found in getting back into doing YouTube videos. Right now, there are only three on my channel, but having gotten some life responsibilities out of the way, and also having properly planned things out, I can devote a lot of time to doing videos on cybersecurity topics of interest.

For a while I wanted to go the full “9”, and invest in really good equipment, and learn all about sound production and all that, but I realized it’s the content that makes cybersecurity videos stand out. Granted, good production can really make a good video even better, but for the sake of presenting these things in a way that’s useful and hopefully demonstrative towards a future employer, I’ll just be happy with my box lights and my Yeti mic.

But hey, if anyone wants to buy some green screen equipment from me for cheap, please do. I never could get the hang of it.

BLUE TEAM TRAINING PLATFORMS

Recently, I finally put down some cash and paid for premium subscriptions to some blue team training platforms. The two I learned about back when I was studying for the Security+ were Blue Team Labs Online (the team behind the Blue Team Level 1 certification, among other things!) and letsdefend.io.

Now, I spent several hours with letsdefend, and it really is a great platform. The thing with letsdefend, is that their interface is very specific and is a stripped down version of what you’d find in a real world environment. Of course, why wouldn’t it be? It’s a training platform! I have to say, though, that I absolutely loved going through the motions of looking through emails on the simulated enterprise network, and filling out reports for the different scenarios. While it is stripped down, those are the motions that I think any SOC analyst is going to go through, and you can get a lot of mileage and insight, I think, into the real thing by going through the real motions.

Blue Team Labs Online, however, has a much more “crisp” interface, it’s slicker, and slicker doesn’t always mean better, but these guys really have this thing well laid out. The labs also rely on virtual machines, which is different from what I experienced during my time at letsdefend.io. I didn’t make it far enough into letsdefend.io to know just how varied and involved their labs are, but I really need to stick with just one, and Blue Team Labs Online is my Blue Team training platform of choice.

#simplycybercommunitychallenge

SimplyCyber is a YouTube channel created and maintained by Dr. Gerald Auger. For the past, well, more than six months, I’ve been tuning in most mornings to the SimplyCyber Daily. SimplyCyber Daily is a news show where Dr. Auger gives his immediate take (he doesn’t field the articles before the show starts) on the different cybersecurity news stories that come in. I think the source is the CISO series, but I’m trying to get this blog post done and I’ll just assume that it is. After all, I’m hearing that announcer say, “And now, from the CISO series…” in my head, so, yeah, I’m pretty sure.

Along with the community that gathers every morning to follow along and interact with one another in the channel itself, there’s a feature called the #simplycybercommunitychallenge. Simply put, someone is picked to be the “baton holder” for the day, and they write about their cybersecurity journey on LinkedIn. They also place the hashtag “#simplycybercommunitychallenge” somewhere in their post. From there, other people comment and like the post, and the idea is to make connections with others on that post. The day that I “got the baton” and posted my cybersecurity story, my network increased by at least 30 people. It’s up to 150+ now, and this isn’t just a numbers game. These are people who are along the same point in their journey that I am, looking for that first SOC role. These are people working hard to get that first certification, a position I was in not too long ago. Finally, these are people getting that first cybersecurity position that I can watch grow, ask questions of, and interact with. This isn’t some fluff feed with throwaway and irrelevant content, this is quality networking that has immense value for your career. I can’t thank Dr. Gerald Auger enough for initiating this challenge and promoting it during every show.