Cybersecurity Analyst Shares Lessons From Early-Career Mistakes

Summary

A cybersecurity analyst reflects on moving beyond executing others’ work to critically investigate problems, ask broader questions, collaborate with stakeholders, and take ownership of detection and process improvements.

Key points

• The speaker says early in their career they relied on others’ investigation queries, dashboards, and automation scripts without always examining how they worked.
• They advise analysts to think critically, question existing solutions, and investigate details for themselves.
• Their work has shifted from straightforward tasks, such as reducing noise in a detection rule, to broader projects requiring strategic thinking and collaboration.
• An example of this expanded work is improving rule tuning by coordinating with stakeholders and using entities already present in detection telemetry for suppressions.
• The speaker emphasizes taking initiative, navigating across teams, and owning solutions for stakeholders.