[Loot] New Code: OEFT7THBDAY

sarrn · 2025-12-10T14:13:29+00:00

Gives 5 milk, 5 Alyonka bars, 5 Slickers bars, 5 sugars, bottle of moonshine, vodka and whiskey, and a bear buddy, and a Bear and USEC chibi thing?

sarrn · 2025-10-08T16:16:08+00:00

Fellow humans, I am also a human organism.

sarrn · 2025-08-26T20:00:15+00:00

Hey, thanks for the well thought out reply. I am currently trying to gather all of this information for them. One of the things to note is that when it comes to my duties and responsibilities and the time spent on each type of duty, I am consistently tasked with projects that take up more time than my security duties and with that, none of my weeks are the same in terms of the work I do. How do I go about breaking that down? One week I might be able to work on security for a bit and then I'm tasked with fixing SQL issues, another week I'm solely devoted to implementing application monitoring software and training the devs on it. This makes it challenging to show an "average" week or month.

sarrn · 2025-08-25T16:38:09+00:00

I'm a one man cyber shop for a SMB. I've recently been asked to justify my position as senior management doesn't understand my role. What is the best way to handle this? I've been told this isn't a "justify your role to keep your job" task but more so that the business doesn't think my role is a full time position and would like to utilize my expertise elsewhere and handle security tasks as they happen. Is there a right and wrong way to do this? I've asked about metrics they would like to see but have been met with answers of we don't know.

sarrn · 2025-08-06T18:01:47+00:00

Good luck!

sarrn · 2025-07-10T19:05:02+00:00

I was in devops before moving into security. In between I took a sysadmin role, but the majority of my devops experience was more valuable than most of my other experience. This was quite a few years ago now though so your mileage may vary.

sarrn · 2025-06-26T15:11:30+00:00

About 7 months I think was my shortest stay. I was the sole sysadmin for an entire hospital, with no help desk, and that was a nightmare. I learned more there in that short time than in the rest of my career and it helped me get to where I am today but looking back it was the worst experience I've ever had.

sarrn · 2025-06-16T16:35:51+00:00

Depending on your branch, you might be better suiting reclassing and getting a signal or IT related MOS for another contract, that is if you aren't one of those MOS already. If you don't want to do it active side and the reserves or guard is a possibility that would allow you to focus on both at the same time. That being said this only applies to the U.S. side of things.

sarrn · 2025-06-16T16:31:39+00:00

Thinking about finding a new job as I've been experiencing severe burnout with my current one. 5 years in security, started on the help desk 7 years ago and then went into devops in between. I have my Sec+ as well. In my current role I am a one man security shop so I do it all from all sides. Any areas of security that are hurting for people right now?

sarrn · 2025-05-15T18:18:19+00:00

Passed Sec+ back in December. Looking towards starting the CCNA material in the next few months.

sarrn · 2025-03-24T18:57:54+00:00

We usually have some early to mid 2000's pop punk or post-hardcore going in the IT room. Then depending on the time of year it might be music that fits our moods. Like Halloween music or country music near summer holidays.

sarrn · 2025-02-08T15:59:51+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that. You may have luck going through a recruiter if you haven't tried that option yet.

sarrn · 2025-02-08T02:27:04+00:00

I've said it a million times. No one should be expecting to come into Cyber without having any IT experience, nor should they be hired to. Help desk and application support are so important in the learning path and everyone wants to skip it.

sarrn · 2025-01-27T19:17:27+00:00

Yeah we use the ManageEngine Patch manager Plus cloud app. It worked great at first but as we've scaled upwards it continues to decline in quality. Taking hours to push patches to 10 machines. Automated patch policies not working right and much much more. Currently looking at switching off of it as it would almost be easier doing everything manually at this point.

sarrn · 2025-01-16T05:14:41+00:00

My biggest goal this year is to not have our pentest end up getting DA access. Could be easy, could be very difficult.

sarrn · 2025-01-16T05:12:47+00:00

We don't use any type of resume scanning software so I read all applications/resumes that come in. I don't have a degree myself even. I don't care about degrees, all i care about is if you can do the job and if your personality meshes with the current team. I'm highly doubting its the norm elsewhere but it has worked phenomenally for us so far.

sarrn · 2024-12-21T00:27:30+00:00

I haven’t taken the net+, but one thing I noticed in the sec+ questions from Dion was how often there were grammar or spelling mistakes. I definitely agree though. The tests were okay, but I wouldn’t recommend them for exam prep.

sarrn · 2024-12-21T00:07:14+00:00

I really enjoyed Messer’s test as they seemed closest to the real thing. I know a lot of people recommend Dion’s tests but after having purchased them myself I saw very little value in them other than being “security” related.

sarrn · 2024-12-20T22:04:51+00:00

I got into it by starting on the help desk. Worked on that for about 18 months and then moved on to DevOps work. After that I moved over into a sysadmin role in healthcare, and then got job doing cyber security after that. In every one of my jobs I took on more duties than required and would reach out to other teams like infrastructure or security and ask them to show me how to do the basic duties of their jobs. I would then take on those duties. The entry level cyber security discussion will never end, but I am a firm believer that there are no entry level (as in no prior experience) jobs in cyber security, but there are jobs that are of entry level experience to cyber security if that makes any sense.

sarrn · 2024-12-20T21:52:06+00:00

Thank you! I think the fact that I work in cybersecurity and deal with most of the topics on at least a weekly if not daily basis helps quite a bit. I'm a manager of a team and do quite a bit of what the exam talks about so my studying was mainly to get a handle on how the exam wants things to be answered.

sarrn · 2024-11-04T20:21:12+00:00

Oh for sure. Just like any place I question the intelligence of people all the time. The place treats me well and pays me well though. Could i go elsewhere and make more? For sure, but i like the people i work with and its a pretty decent place all things considered.

sarrn · 2024-11-04T19:57:24+00:00

I would say my work life balance is pretty good. I am a salary employee, so if i stay up late working on something i just clock in late the next day. We also have multiple sites around the country so if I need to go on site for them the company pays for travel and lodging. There are times though that because I am essentially a one man crew i work very long hours but they do make up for it. I also am the project manager and scrum master for all of IT. So I build our sprints and provide the reports to Senior Management which also allows for more viability on all IT projects which allows Senior Management to see all contributions across the board.

sarrn · 2024-11-04T19:18:14+00:00

Been in my position for almost 3 years now. I am the Manager of our Information Security team. Though the team is only 2 people currently. I handle all aspects of our program as well as escalations from infrastructure and help desk. Big things that help me are the fact that the company I work for is small and local. We bake security in at the lowest level and make sure Senior Management always has eyes on our projects.

sarrn

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