What You Don’t Want to Hear… to Make it in Cyber Security.

These are the unspoken rules that you want to ignore, but just… can’t. Feel free to argue with me.

I’ve been grumbling about this for a long time, but you young ones need to heed my warning. I’ve been in the industry 26 years and have literally lived through three crashes and three times technology was turned on its head. I apologize if I’ve been grumpy but turning my industry which is a fine art into a get-rich-quick scheme makes me angry. If you’re here for a paycheck, do something else.

My Takes on the Industry

1. It's a proven fact that the ones who are more insecure and unskilled are the ones who are mean to minorities, women, or any other protected class or ppl they feel inferior. The ones who have it going on don’t care about that stuff. Check yourself.
2. You need a good ten years of experience in engineering or IT to have the skills you need, regardless of degree program or certificate.
3. Gov jobs are a barren wasteland.
4. Your attitudes toward cyber security likely birthed themselves from when Nintendo, thus every media out there, marketed itself to boys only. So if you cannot imagine a 55-year-old man sitting beside you or a 40-year-old woman, go do something else. If you look around and see everyone of the same race and age, run!
5. The 1990’s are almost always not depicted right in anything from the media. Everyone made fun of pop bands. Everyone made fun of Barbie. Everyone made fun of Barney!
6. The 5 am trend is true. I started getting up early as a child and I found it did help me be more driven and successful.
7. You can wear jeans but they can’t be Walmart jeans. Dress for success. Work really hard to look like you aren’t trying.
8. Don’t go overboard on formal wear for a job interview. If you wear a suit, you’re better off working on the east coast.
9. Think creatively. Write proposals. Dress mostly formal for that. Bring pastries. Bring adhesive products.
10. Never outshine your boss. Even if it's so easy to do so that you can see the pile of turds behind his eyes.
11. Cybersecurity is not entry-level. Your tech college might have sold you a sham. And that really sucks. You will only pass that gauntlet if you know how things work.
12. Those jobs that make you CFT or finish a project before hire are usually awful. They are looking for like minds to inflate their own ego. If you want to be hivemind, go ASSIMILATE. But no one likes hivemind.
13. You’re trying to shoot a sparrow with a cannon when you get 61 certifications. You don’t need to get every cyber security certificate there is. Memory recall is less important than the creative math brain.
14. Three tech years == ten years everywhere else. Don’t stay at any place longer than 3–5 years. They won't be loyal to you, except in rare circumstances.
15. You’re not going to get a lot of cutting-edge security experience at Universities/schools or Hospitals.
16. Speaking of that let’s talk location. SF, as you well know from the news, is a barren wasteland. Dunno what you think about everywhere else.
17. No one is your friend. Document as much as you can by email, quite literally, in one form or another. Chat Software will always come and go and memory recall is vastly different from person to person. Document the good and bad things.
18. Remember to never assume intent, because some of them are actually out to get you.
19. Create a public portfolio and speak of your experiences.
20. Never let go of what you love, and look for those sparks of electricity. If cyber isn’t where it's at, go do something else. I hear DevOps is hiring.
21. Accept when things go wrong. It might just be a blessing in disguise.
22. Do not care about status and prestige, that is the model that depreciates the quickest. Money is not the solution.
23. Realize you can have platonic friendships with coworkers. Invite all of your coworkers. Invite all of your coworkers. Yes, even Susan and Bob. Even weird guy Chuck.
24. Reputation is everything.
25. It's better to say nothing than to be a version of you that is unauthentic.
26. Ergonomics, don’t work over 60 hours a week.
27. No one called themselves hackers until about 2018 when it became popular to wear Hoodies on Twitter.
28. Others might offer this to you for a price or follow. This is free because I’m bored with seeing the same things over and over on my feed.
29. This isn’t rocket science, everything changes almost every six months. You don’t learn things and stop. You will always work to improve yourself in this field. You will be naturally curious. If you think you know everything wait six months. What that means is we are all at the same level of knowledge given that everything changes, but some of us are more experienced in running the gauntlet.
30. Gauntlet runners are invaluable. Solve puzzles. Love what you do.

This article is written for a great mentor, friend, and colleague who killed himself after being bullied as a whistleblower at a major insurance company. He faced ageism, and he was Mensa-level smart. They took a light away from humanity, and most important his family whom he loved so very much. MH, thank you for everything you taught me.

What are you thoughts? Got any to add? Feel free to debate.

Citations

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The opinions and thoughts expressed on this platform reflect only the author’s views alone. Images/passages within this publication may contain certain elements of artificial intelligence; but unless specified, have been edited for this article. This image originates from OpenAI/ChatGPT (2024).