Options

Security Marketing and Allure

docricedocrice Member Posts: 1,706 ■■■■■■■■■■
We've all come across those fun "hacking" videos and it's a starting point that provides an appeal for those seeking to enter IT security as their career focus. There are also more professional commercials which engage the viewer into that movie mindset:

McAfee Foundstone Professional Services
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55JvQCJCWc

Mandiant Overview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prni0MKX4hc

Lockheed Martin Cyber Security
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykk6QPzkXHY

And Infosec seems to have all the cool-looking tools:

NetWitness Black Hat demo 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOGcHIXiifs

It all looks slick with digital bits of glowing data in cyberspace for everyone to do cybersecurity "stuff" with it. Hands on the keyboards, big screens around you with scrolling green text against black backgrounds, complex graphs, digital fingerprints, electronic music, and that very intense seriousness... A very compelling package.

I feel like I'm watching Transformers.
Hopefully-useful stuff I've written: http://kimiushida.com/bitsandpieces/articles/

Comments

  • Options
    laughing_manlaughing_man Member Posts: 84 ■■□□□□□□□□
    I think it has been firmly established that Security work is now the "sexiest" of all the IT fields. Unfortunately, these ads play on the things folks see on TV and in the movies, which of course is utterly fake or stylized (Hack the Gibson!).

    It would be nice if some of these companys, instead of just trying to lure hapless IT neophytes with their training dollars, actually pointed them to other courses which would be truly beneficial. You need a solid IT background before going into Security, plain and simple. Learn the basics, work the help desk/desktop tech, become a sys admin, pay your dues.
  • Options
    JDMurrayJDMurray Admin Posts: 13,028 Admin
  • Options
    ptilsenptilsen Member Posts: 2,835 ■■■■■■■■■■
    Yeah, I'm always a little leery when I see people asking about CEH and Pentesting. I think a lot of people who are not cut out for in-depth technical security are still very interested in it and get sucked in.

    I'm currently pursuing a position in which I'll get to do a mixture of technical security and policy, and I'm very excited. But I'm not under any delusions of grandeur -- I've gotten to experience what the reality of IT security is in most businesses and I actually enjoy what it entails, which, put briefly, is a lot of paperwork. I think a lot of would-be security professionals think it's all "hacking" and such. Even pure pentesting is not even close to what some of these organizations make it out to be.
    Working B.S., Computer Science
    Complete: 55/120 credits SPAN 201, LIT 100, ETHS 200, AP Lang, MATH 120, WRIT 231, ICS 140, MATH 215, ECON 202, ECON 201, ICS 141, MATH 210, LING 111, ICS 240
    In progress: CLEP US GOV,
    Next up: MATH 211, ECON 352, ICS 340
  • Options
    the_Grinchthe_Grinch Member Posts: 4,165 ■■■■■■■■■■
    You have to remember most of these ads are geared towards managers who wouldn't really know the difference and are impressed by flashy videos. It's not just Security that does this either. MSP's use these same tactics and what I can really classify as social engineering.
    WIP:
    PHP
    Kotlin
    Intro to Discrete Math
    Programming Languages
    Work stuff
  • Options
    docricedocrice Member Posts: 1,706 ■■■■■■■■■■
    Marketing is social engineering. The fine art of manipulation of perceptions.
    Hopefully-useful stuff I've written: http://kimiushida.com/bitsandpieces/articles/
  • Options
    pumbaa_gpumbaa_g Member Posts: 353
    I saw this first hand last month when I went to give my 642 at Prometric, a guy had come in for giving the CCIE Security Exam. I stuck up a conversation with him regarding his work/Experience as somewhere down the line I do want to think about CISSP and to my utter surprise he is a fresh out of college. I always thought that Security is something that requires some amount of experience but things change I guess, as of now all the COOL kids are going into security icon_rolleyes.gif
    [h=1]“An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.” [/h]
  • Options
    tpatt100tpatt100 Member Posts: 2,991 ■■■■■■■■■□
    Sounds like government contractors and the private industry looking for more billable hours.
  • Options
    doobiesdoobies Member Posts: 30 ■□□□□□□□□□
    docrice wrote: »
    Marketing is social engineering. The fine art of manipulation of perceptions.


    all of these advirisements are.... hillarious. Your lucky in some shops if you get a dual core machine and a good pipe and working vpn. ROFLMAO.

    There are a few places with super hitech shops... but for the most part these ads are a misrepresentation... ... sexy security job...... ha.. diacap is soooooo sexy.icon_rolleyes.gif
    Grem or die
    cyber is getting spooky.. Too much commercialism spreading sh!t analysis/misinformation.

    whats your plan to fix it..
  • Options
    pumbaa_gpumbaa_g Member Posts: 353
    I personally like using powershell with Green Font and Black Ground in office icon_wink.gif makes people wonder what I am upto icon_lol.gif
    [h=1]“An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.” [/h]
  • Options
    onesaintonesaint Member Posts: 801
    JDMurray wrote: »
    More "Cyber Sexy Time" from Boeing: Boeing Cyber Solutions - YouTube

    I'd really, really love to see an MST3K version of this commercial.
    Work in progress: picking up Postgres, elastisearch, redis, Cloudera, & AWS.
    Next up: eventually the RHCE and to start blogging again.

    Control Protocol; my blog of exam notes and IT randomness
Sign In or Register to comment.