Career Switch : From Banking to InfoSec !!

Lakshitha88

Dear All ,

First of all : extremely sorry for the lengthy post...
Secondly : I've gone through the forums and found much valuable guidance and used those to formulate my current action plan , But I never came across a case similar to mine.

I'll first start with a bit of background on myself ,

Ever since I got my first PC (in 1999) , I was very much passionate about IT and had much plans for continuing IT education upon completion of high school studies and managed to enroll in Bachelors in MIS program.

H/e unfortunately , I landed a trainee sales/customer service officer job at my current employer and was forced to take it due to my family's financial situation at that time and I had to give up my studies.
Ever since I've been working for a leading bank in my country (Sri Lanka) , with 6+ years exposure in the below areas :

1) Sales / Customer Service
2) Social Media / Digital Marketing *
3) Operations
4) Supply Chain Management**

*I was conceptualizing the mobile banking solution and the organizations digital strategies with a team of 15 volunteers.
** I was trusted with the front end administration tasks of the inventory management system.

As I've stated above , I've been to many places within the organization throughout my career , and at the moment I'm financially stable *** and I want to switch over to the exiting world of IT .

*** Good stable income & happily married to an IS Auditor wife...

THE QUESTION IS :

Through out all these years I've always been fascinated by the InfoSec field mainly the Forensics/Incident Response & Auditing branches.

As I've figured it out , at 26 years of age it's too late for me to study towards a general IT degree or a diploma and start fresh.

H/e I firmly believe that IF THERE'S A WILL THERE'S ALWAYS A WAY !!

And I believe that the community here at TechExams.net will be able to give me some pointers on where to start.

Currently I'm doing the below :

1. Self studying Computer Networking
2. ENSA (Ec-Council Network Security Administrator) : Started Yesterday : Duration 4 Months

(Why I'm doing ENSA as opposed to Security+ / Network+ it's really really hard to find classes/lectures for Comp-Tia program's in my country - And as my first class I wanted to attend an instructor led classroom)

Upon successful completion of ENSA , I'm thinking of either doing :

1. CEH > CHFI
2. SSCP > CISSP > CCFP
3. CEH > SSCP > CISA

* While I'm studying for the above mentioned certifications , I'm planing to join a Bsc program on Cyber Security / Internet Communications (Since I'm going as a mature student and a person with a non IT background , I'll have to prove that I'm genuinely interested in IT / InfoSec)

It would be great if anyone can give me some pointers...

Lakshitha88

1st Bump

YFZblu

As far as certs and education, I'm sure you'll instinctively do what you believe is right. On the 'skills' topic, this is a thread I created about a year ago when I started to get more infosec interviews. Hope it helps you some:

http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/90294-security-analyst-interview-some-what-you-need-know.html

Lakshitha88

YFZblu wrote: »

As far as certs and education, I'm sure you'll instinctively do what you believe is right. On the 'skills' topic, this is a thread I created about a year ago when I started to get more infosec interviews. Hope it helps you some:

http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/90294-security-analyst-interview-some-what-you-need-know.html

Thanks a lot for taking time to reply

I'm going through the thread you mentioned right now.

Btw - Which path would you take IF you were @ my position ??

LinuxNerd

I think skills are more important than certifications. I'm doing security work right now and have no certifications nor will I seek to get any, too busy coding and building new skills to bother with a certification. But that's just me...

Lakshitha88

LinuxNerd wrote: »

I think skills are more important than certifications. I'm doing security work right now and have no certifiations nor will I seek to get any, too busy coding and building new skills to bother with a certification. But that's just me...

Thanks a lot for the reply

May I ask what field you r in?
H/e since I want to get in to IS audit / IS management / Forensics / Incident Response areas... I think skills alone won't help...

What do you think?

N2IT

Have to agree with Linux, scripting is a tremendous skill to have regardless of most positions.

While I am going for a SQL certification it's taken me over a 1.5 and I am still not ready. I have a hard time following the curriculum I am more interested in the usability of the skills, not that it aligns with MS or some other vendor.

YFZblu

Lakshitha88 wrote: »

Thanks a lot for the reply

May I ask what field you r in?
H/e since I want to get in to IS audit / IS management / Forensics / Incident Response areas... I think skills alone won't help...

What do you think?

You definitely want to first nail down which area, exactly, you want to pursue. Forensics / Incident Response is a much different pathway than management.

Lakshitha88

@YFZblu : To be honest I'd love to work in the field of Forensics / Incident Response .
But my understanding is that it requires a lot of hands on experience to be successful in those fields.

So , I'm thinking of leaning towards the IS Audit / IS Management area , where I can take advantage of the many years I've spent working with the veriouse management levels in variouse business areas within an organization.

I think it'll be easier to add in crucial IS knowledge and enter the field and thereafter build up on the *specific* areas .

Therefore , would like to know your take on the below mentioned paths :

1. ENSA > SSCP > CISA > CISSP
2. ENSA > SSCP > CISSP > CISA
3. ENSA > CEH > SSCP > CISA

Lakshitha88

Okay guys I've finally decided !!

ENSA -> CompTIA S+ -> SSCP

* in between ENSA & CompTia S+, I'm planning on doing CompTia N+

* Upon completion of SSCP I'll start a BSc in Cyber Security.

Target : To become a professional infosec analyst / architect.

Lakshitha88

2nd BUMP

LinuxNerd

Lakshitha88 wrote: »

Thanks a lot for the reply

May I ask what field you r in?
H/e since I want to get in to IS audit / IS management / Forensics / Incident Response areas... I think skills alone won't help...

What do you think?

I would focus on developing scripting skills and make some custom security tools to impress a potential employer. I personally prefer bash because I can do everything I need to do very simply and logically without needing C or python.

This guy has 7 of these videos up that may help:

Linux Command Line: Day 1: UNIX and Linux, an Introduction - YouTube

TechGuru80

There is definitely some good information in responses here.

Forensics and Incident Response rely heavily on the ability to know systems and know networks. From there you would move to more security tools, scripting, etc. This means first you should start learning as much as you can about systems (windows, linux) and networking. If you can get at least an MCSA and Net+/Sec+ you will be in really good shape...and of course supplement some Linux/Unix knowledge. Forensics and Incident Response involve registry and log analysis, as well as packet analysis. It will not do you any good to simply see that port 20 started running, if you cannot go back and find the how, the who, and the why.

Languages like Python can be helpful for creating tools but you are going to be much better off getting the foundation first. You might even consider a network certification such as Cisco to get an idea of what the logs look like and what does what. Auditing involves checking settings so being familiar with operating systems again is important, and knowledge of the compliance laws that are applicable.

Action Plan:
1. Network+ (or CCNA) / Security+
2. MCSA (and at minimum reading through a Linux book and practicing)

1 and 2 could be switched

3. CEH
4. Forensics Certifications

These could be switched as well but CEH will teach you how to use tools that malicious users utilize and how they impact networks and systems. Therefore CEH might be more useful before Forensics Certifications.

5. CISSP

The reason why this certification is so far down the list: 1. it requires several years of experience to fully attain, 2. it is a more policy/management driven certification and will not help much in actually performing the duties of a forensics investigator or incident responder.

Lakshitha88

WoW !!

Thanks a lot Sir

What you've given seems to me like a solid one..

NOW Immediate Future Within 2 Years Within 3years
ENSA --> Security+ --> CEH --> CHFI
CCENT Linux+ SSCP

* What do you think about the move that I'm going to make ? (Banking/Maerketing to InfoSec)

TechGuru80 wrote: »

There is definitely some good information in responses here.

Forensics and Incident Response rely heavily on the ability to know systems and know networks. From there you would move to more security tools, scripting, etc. This means first you should start learning as much as you can about systems (windows, linux) and networking. If you can get at least an MCSA and Net+/Sec+ you will be in really good shape...and of course supplement some Linux/Unix knowledge. Forensics and Incident Response involve registry and log analysis, as well as packet analysis. It will not do you any good to simply see that port 20 started running, if you cannot go back and find the how, the who, and the why.

Languages like Python can be helpful for creating tools but you are going to be much better off getting the foundation first. You might even consider a network certification such as Cisco to get an idea of what the logs look like and what does what. Auditing involves checking settings so being familiar with operating systems again is important, and knowledge of the compliance laws that are applicable.

Action Plan:
1. Network+ (or CCNA) / Security+
2. MCSA (and at minimum reading through a Linux book and practicing)

1 and 2 could be switched

3. CEH
4. Forensics Certifications

These could be switched as well but CEH will teach you how to use tools that malicious users utilize and how they impact networks and systems. Therefore CEH might be more useful before Forensics Certifications.

5. CISSP

The reason why this certification is so far down the list: 1. it requires several years of experience to fully attain, 2. it is a more policy/management driven certification and will not help much in actually performing the duties of a forensics investigator or incident responder.

Lakshitha88

Thanks everyone

TechGuru80

You might find yourself back in Banking at some point. Industries like to have people that are familiar with the way they operate and security/forensics are becoming huge in that industry. It all comes down to preference...forensics is pretty cool but no doubt it becomes quite a specialized role. Do not forget that things can always change as far as interests and opportunities...for that reason you want to start general (network/security certs) and focus as time goes by. Without any experience you might find yourself doing other jobs or roles for 3-5 years while breaking into forensics. As long as you build a foundation that is broad and narrow down, you will end up where you ultimately want to be.