Imagine that you’re preparing for a storm.
You’ve received notification that a storm is coming.
You prepare by gathering the tools and materials you’ll need to stay safe.
You make sure your windows and doors are secure.
You assemble a first aid kit, tools, food, and water.
You’re prepared! The storm hits, and there are powerful winds and heavy rain.
The storm is using its force to try and breach your home.
You notice some water leaks and begin patching them quickly in order to
minimize any risk or potential damage.
Handling a security incident is no different.
Organizations must prepare for the storm by ensuring they have the tools to
mitigate and quickly respond to outside threats.
The objective is to minimize risk and potential damage.
As a security analyst, you’ll work to protect your organization and the people
it serves, from a variety of risks and outside threats.
And if a threat does get through, you and your team will provide a solution to
remedy the situation.
To help you better understand what this means, we’ll define security and discuss
the roles of security professionals in organizations.
Let’s start with some definitions: Cybersecurity, or security, is the
practice of ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of
information by protecting networks, devices, people, and data from
unauthorized access or criminal exploitation.
For example, requiring complex passwords to access sites and services improves
confidentiality by making it much more difficult for a threat actor to
compromise them. A threat actor is any person or group who presents a security
risk. Now that you know the definition of security, let’s discuss what security
teams do for an organization.
Security protects against external and internal threats.
An external threat is someone outside of the organization trying to gain access
to private information, networks, or devices.
An internal threat comes from current or former employees, external vendors, or
trusted partners.
Often these internal threats are accidental, such as an employee clicking
on a compromised link in an email.
Other times, the internal actor INTENTIONALLY engages in activities such
as unauthorized data access or abusing systems for personal use.
Experienced security professionals will help organizations mitigate - or reduce
the impact of - threats like these.
Security teams also ensure an organization meets regulatory
compliance, or laws and guidelines, that require the implementation of
specific security standards.
Ensuring that organizations are in compliance may allow them to avoid fines
and audits, while also upholding their ethical obligation to protect users.
Security teams also maintain and improve business productivity.
By establishing a plan for business continuity, security teams allow people
to do their jobs even in the case of something like a data breach.
Being security conscious can also reduce expenses associated with risk, such as
recovering from data loss or operational downtime, and potentially
avoiding fines. The last benefit of security that we'll discuss is
maintaining brand trust.
If services or customer data are compromised, this can lower trust in the
organization, damage the brand, and hurt the business in the long term.
Loss of customer trust may also lead to less revenue for the business.
Now, let’s go over some common security-based roles.
After completing this certificate program, here are some job titles you
may want to search for: Security analyst or specialist,
Cybersecurity analyst or specialist,
Security operations center or S-O-C analyst,
and Information security analyst.
You'll also learn more about the
responsibilities associated with some of these job titles later in the
program. As you may now realize, the field of security includes many topics
and concepts. And every activity you complete in this program moves you one
step closer to a new job!
Let's keep learning together!
Technology is rapidly changing, and so are the tactics and techniques that
attackers use. As digital infrastructure evolves, security
professionals are expected to continually grow their skills in order
to protect and secure sensitive information.
In this video, we’ll discuss some job responsibilities of an entry-level
security analyst.
So, what do security analysts do?
Security analysts are responsible for monitoring and protecting information
and systems. Now, we'll discuss three primary responsibilities of a security
analyst, starting with protecting computer and network systems.
Protecting computer and network systems requires an analyst to monitor an
organization's internal network.
If a threat is detected, then an analyst is generally the first to
respond. Analysts also often take part in exercises to search for weaknesses in
an organization's own systems.
For example, a security analyst may contribute to penetration testing or
ethical hacking. The goal is to penetrate - or hack - their own
organization's internal network to identify vulnerabilities and suggest
ways to strengthen their security measures.
Think of it like this. After you lock your car, you check the door handles to
make sure no one can access any valuables you keep inside.
Security analysts also proactively work to PREVENT threats from happening in the
first place. One way they do this is by working with information technology - or
I-T - teams to install prevention software for the purposes of identifying
risks and vulnerabilities.
Analysts may also be involved in software and hardware development.
They’ll often work with development teams to support product security by
setting up appropriate processes and systems to meet the organization’s data
protection needs. The last task we’ll discuss is conducting periodic security
audits. A security audit is a review of an organization’s security records,
activities, and other related documents.
For example, an analyst may examine in-house security issues such as making
sure that confidential information, like individual computer passwords,
isn't available to ALL employees.
Phew, that was a lot to cover!
But hopefully you have a general idea of what entry-level security analysts do
on a day-to-day basis.
Security analysts are an important part of any organization.
Their daily tasks protect small businesses, large companies, non-profit
organizations, and government agencies.
They also help to ensure that the people served by those organizations
remain safe.