What?! Another New Security Blog

So why start a blog and why call it “Cyber Front Security” and what do I offer that no one else does? Well… The short answer is I want to contribute to the community. My intent is to write this blog with a law enforcement audience in mind. Seeing as how I'm new in the field, I'm plan on posting a lot about getting into industry, what it takes to move up, and the type of challenges are to be expected. 

But the real answer is that I’ve spent my entire life learning and training to be in the military only to have life happen and tell me "it wasn't so". So in 24 hours I went from knowing what I was doing for the next several years to feeling like this guy after he lands:

                              It’s really freaking cool until you face plant the big wooden target! 

I had just resigned from working the radio at the local PD in anticipation of leaving for the military and I was left thinking, “well crap…. what am I going to do now?”.  So I called up my friends in the industry, went to a TON of conferences, and rebuilt my home lab. I knew my knees weren't gonna get any better and I knew which skill sets I was going to need.  So I improvised; I started full time back in college and started attending those conferences so I could learn, meet people, and show something positive in the gaps on my resume. I adapted, I further developed the skill sets I would need to be successful in a corporate world. I overcame; I've found my niche.

I under stand policing, I speak the lingo, and I know the people. Walking into a police department and telling them their network is insecure is easy (dealing with a bunch of officers that are now cranky... not so much!). Getting them to trust you to fix it is another thing entirely. People that carry guns for a living don't trust other people that don't. It's because they see what people are capable of every day and they're always the ones coming to save the day. It's difficult for them to sit on the other side unless it's for someone they already know they can trust. 

Way back when I was young... (I can already see the baby face jokes coming!) I decided I really liked computers. I was playing Reader Rabit and the Oregon Trail on my trusty (or was it dusty?) old x386. I built (and set flame to!) to my first computer before I was 10, I played at cracking passwords, live CDs such the original auditor, the forerunner to the now popular backtrack.

For the past couple of years I’ve been working in the communications division of my local police department. I earned my GCFA a couple of months after I was hired and started helping the Intelligence unit with forensic analysis. But there wasn’t a huge caseload and of course I was a young, n00b FNG. It was really just a matter of time before I made a career out it.

Well here I find myself, fresh in the field as a Security Analyst at InterDev (www.interdev.com) and the sky is the limit! I’m working on all kinds of new and exciting projects with a law enforcement emphasis. We’re starting to develop some partnerships that I hope will help the law enforcement community get the help they need in fighting on the front lines of cyber security. 

This blog is just one of the incarnations of my newly acquired career plan. I'm working in security now and I'm focused on working closely with law enforcement to defend against and take action on cyber crime. I don't think it will be long before law enforcement will be entrenched on the front lines of cyber security.

I'd like to throw a special shout out to Chris Pogue, Grayson Lenik, and, Rob Lee for all the help and guidance, the opportunities, and their contributions to the community. There's no way I would have been able to get started so well without their help.

And of course I can’t leave out Harlan Carvey’s RegRipper and Kristinn Gudjonsso’s  log2timeline for making analysts everywhere look like geniuses!