If you are good in a crisis and have the drive to scope out technological crimes and cyber incidents, then being a security operations center (SOC) analyst could be the right job for you.
What Is a Security Operations Center (SOC) Analyst?
Similar to cybersecurity analysts, SOC analysts are the first responders to cyber-incidents. They report cyberthreats and then implement changes to protect an organization.
Job duties include:
Provide threat and vulnerability analysis
Investigate, document and report on information security issues and emerging trends
Analyze and respond to previously undisclosed software and hardware vulnerabilities
Prepare organizational disaster recovery plans
Whereas a cybersecurity analyst may be the only cybersecurity professional at an organization, SOC analysts are generally part of a large security operations team. The SOC analyst role is the last line of defense against cybercriminals. Without them, hackers and other cyber criminals may never be found.
SOC analysts work alongside with cybersecurity engineers and security managers and most likely report to a chief information security officer (CISO).
A SOC analyst must have a steady and unshakable eye for detail, as they have to monitor many things at once. They must watch and respond to a number of threats, and there may be different levels of responsibilities depending on how big the company is and how many SOC analyst’s it employs. From monitoring to reacting, a SOC analyst’s day is rarely the same from one to the next.
How to Become a Security Operations Center (SOC) Analyst
Most companies hiring a SOC analyst are looking for someone with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, cybersecurity or a related field. Many SOC analysts previously worked as network or systems administrators.
A certification like CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CySA+) can help you gain the skills you need to become a SOC analyst. Check out the CompTIA Career Roadmap to see what other certifications relate to cybersecurity jobs.
The Details
SOC Analyst Salary Range
$50,000 to $75,000, with a median annual wage of $72,000 (Burning Glass Technologies)
Success Secrets: How you can Pass CompTIA Certification Exams in first attempt
IT is a profession that’s built around the hard science of computing, so for those casual users who haven’t spent much time investigating the ins and outs of computers, it might sound a little dry. Or intimidating. But while there’s plenty to learn about the way computers and networks function in order to manage the technology in a professional environment, hard facts are hardly the half of it. A help desk technician or technical support specialist who’s been in the game for even just a little while can tell you that there’s an art to IT: the better part of providing high-quality service is bringing knowledge to life with creative thinking.
Every help desk ticket poses its own unique challenges, so being able to think on your feet and use creative problem-solving skills is a key to success in IT at every step of the game. This is why the latest update of CompTIA A+, the foundational entry-level IT certification, tests as heavily on the ability to think through problems as it does on the knowledge it takes to recognize them.
If you’re considering IT as a career path, don’t fear that you might be setting yourself up for something boring. Help desk-level IT work is anything but that. To understand how, take a look at the following ways creative problem-solving skills come into play, every day, at the help desk.
Figuring Out What an End User Means Versus What They Say
For the tier 1 help desk technician, simply figuring out what the problem is can take a lot of creative horsepower. That’s because, depending on the end user’s technical abilities, what they ask is not always what they mean.
One of the most common things a help desk pro hears is, “My computer doesn’t work.” This could mean a lot of things – and drilling down to figure out the simplest problem can be a complicated process.
For instance, if an end user complains about a cursor that won’t move around on the screen, that could indicate a computer that has momentarily locked up, a USB mouse that’s not plugged in or even the presence of malware. Help desk pros even run into people who confuse an internet browser window with network connectivity.
It’s all part of the gig, and managing it requires IT pros to be able to put themselves in the shoes of the less tech-savvy – to think broadly about what’s happening on the other end of the call or chat, reverse-engineer the thought process and figure out what’s actually going on, and then communicate a solution in the way that makes the most sense.
Connecting the Dots to Get Back Online
“I can’t get on the network,” is another common – and frustrating – issue for end users. Both the cause and the resolution can be one of many – hardware, software, network connections, security issues. Two users could report the same problem and require very different resolutions.
While diagnosing and addressing a network connectivity issue certainly requires understanding hard tech facts, like the difference between TCP and UDP ports and their purposes, there's not a single schematic that tells the whole story to an IT pro doing the work.
Manufacturers build things differently, different device models vary in how they're built and computers can have innate design flaws that cause problems. Approaching network connectivity problems can take a combination of next-gen knowledge and old-fashioned elbow grease to fix. Figuring everything out can take some intuition and some artistry on the part of a help desk pro.
Creative Researching and Knowing Where to Look
No help desk pro has every fact about every computer committed to memory – and not every problem that arises is something you can learn studying for an exam. For instance, if a particular operating system recently received a patch that began to cause conflicts with a software package, that’s a development that no one can really anticipate.
Part of the creative problem solving the help desk does involves identifying what might be going wrong and knowing where to look to find a fix. Knowing which online user community to visit or what YouTube tutorial might hold an answer to an emerging problem is key to implementing the right solution. Help desk technicians need to be resourceful in finding the answers they don’t know off the top of their heads.
Success Secrets: How you can Pass CompTIA Certification Exams in first attempt
As a systems engineer, you are skilled in implementing new systems, fixing errors in existing systems and improving performance through hardware upgrades. These skills are so interchangeable that they can help lead you toward a career in cybersecurity.
If you currently work in networking, software development, systems engineering, financial and risk analysis, or security intelligence, you’re in luck because CyberSeek has outlined cybersecurity career pathways that begin with these roles, known as feeder roles. Feeder roles are stepping stones into certain cybersecurity jobs because of the similarities in skill requirements and significant skill overlap with multiple core cybersecurity roles.
This article is the third in a series about how to get into cybersecurity from these roles and will focus on how to get into cybersecurity from systems engineering.
Choose Your Own Cybersecurity Career
There are many opportunities for IT pros to start and advance their careers within cybersecurity. CyberSeek’s interactive career pathway shows key jobs within cybersecurity, common transition opportunities between them and detailed information about the salaries, credentials and skillsets associated with each role.
These core cybersecurity roles are the most commonly requested job categories across the cybersecurity ecosystem. They are classified as entry level, mid-level or advanced level based upon the experience, education levels and credentials requested by employers.
The Skills Needed for Cybersecurity
Your experience as a systems engineer gives you certain transferrable skills that can help you begin a career in cybersecurity as a cybersecurity specialist, cybersecurity analyst, cybersecurity engineer, security architect and many more.
