- In the cybersecurity field,
it's very common to deal with obstacle.
You are literally working
in a field that is evolving every day
so it's very common to learn new things every day.
So you've gotta be willing to be
on that state of learning mode all the time.
The other thing is,
depending on the type of job that you decide
to work on the cybersecurity field,
it can be very stressful.
That's the reality.
For example, if you are working on the incident response
on the SOC, Secure Operations Center,
it can be very stressful
because you are dealing with attacks.
You are dealing with responding quickly
to incidents, taking action,
so it can be a very stressful situation.
What you need to do is you need to focus
on things that you have control.
You really cannot stress too much about things
that are out of your control.
You gotta be aware, yes, but not really stress too much
because they will only derail your focus
and it is not gonna help overall.
The other thing in this field is that it's very common
that you have what we call the unconscious bias.
Because you already have some experience
in different scenarios,
mainly when you come from different fields,
you try to create this correlation and think about,
"Oh, I've seen something like this before."
And then you go to an investigation,
you go to an activity already
with some predisposition in mind.
You validate your own hypothesis,
which can be dangerous.
If you go to a case thinking,
"I know what this is, I know what this is,"
you, basically, are looking for clues
to validate your hypothesis.
You need to go in a more open mind aspect
because this can impact anyone
who are dealing with incident response, threat intelligence.
Those disciplines requires critical thinking
and requires you to, yes, use some of your experience,
but don't allow that experience to lead your investigation
in a way that you are basically validating
what you believe it is.
And when you believe it is without evidence,
then it's your unconscious bias talking.
So make sure that you collect the evidence,
you connect the dots, you use critical thinking,
and continue the investigation based on those principles
without using any type of bias.
Constant change in technology leads to continue learning.
So that's awesome, but it's also challenging
because some people, they say,
"Well, I feel overwhelmed
that I have to learn new things all the time."
Well, that's the reality about cybersecurity.
You have to learn new things all the time,
but you need to make some adjustments.
So let's say you ramp up on something
and now something new comes up.
What is the priority of learning this new?
You cannot learn everything at the same time
so you need to create this prioritization.
The prioritization many times is dictated by the projects
that you are working on
so you have to understand your workload,
prioritize the projects,
and then prioritize learning about the technology
that are part of those high-priority projects.
That's how you can navigate through this
without trying to learn everything at the same time.
The other important point is, as you evolve in your career,
let's say, you work on the first year, you did really well.
On the second year, you've got a promotion.
Okay, now what's next?
Remember, what got you here won't get you there.
So you need to come up with new things.
You need to be creative.
You need to look at new deliverables.
Only executing and delivering the things
that you deliver in the past
will get you achieve type of impact,
but not an exceed
because you're not bringing nothing new.
There is a expectation that you do more.
Remember, what you've done now becomes your baseline.
Now you have to do more.
So think about that as well.