Journal #1

Review the NICE Workforce Framework.  Are there certain areas that you would want to focus your career on?  Explain which areas would appeal the most to you and which would appeal the least.

My career path would revolve around “Analysis,” “Collet and Operate,” and “Protect and Defend” after examining the NICE Workforce Frame. As a future cyber security professional, I’m most interested in the “Analyze” section because it deals with exploitation analysis, a topic that interests me greatly. It is possible to fill access and data collection gaps by using exploitation analysis in conjunction with online data gathering and preparation. Targeted networks are infiltrated using all available resources and analytic techniques. The analytical nature of this field and the need for strong analytical skills make it a good fit for me. The “Collect and Operate” area would be my second option because of its focus on cyber operations. Gathering evidence on criminal or foreign intelligence entities in order to mitigate threats, protecting against insider threats, protecting against foreign sabotage and international terrorist activities, and supporting other intelligence activities are some of the tasks you would perform in cyber operations. With all the daily computer attacks, I believe that a career where you can gather evidence on a criminal without putting yourself in danger would be beneficial. “Protect and Defend” would be the third area in which I would concentrate my career. My mind immediately goes to the cyber security “blue” and “red” teams when I see this section. A cyber defense analysis would be referred to as the “blue team” because they employ defensive methods and data gathered from several sources to discover, evaluate, and report on network events that occur or may occur in order to safeguard data, information systems, and networks from attacks. Vulnerability assessment and management is a career path for a cyber security professional who wants to join the “red team,” as it conducts assessments of threats and vulnerabilities, identifies deviations from acceptable policies, assesses the level of risk, and recommends appropriate mitigation countermeasures in operational as well as nonoperational scenarios. I’d have to say the “Operate and Maintain” area is the one area that appeals to me the least out of all the areas. I only chose this area because I believe it is the least intriguing of the many exciting fields in cyber security. There are still a few things in this field that I find interesting and hard, but not as much as the others. No matter how much I would want to be doing something else, I believe that if I prepare myself and put in the effort, I will be able to find work in any of the areas I have listed.