Malta Info Security

Another week, yet another Monday as exams draw in closer.

This morning my thin client (Epatec/ebox 3850 w/Debian) has shown me the hand all of a sudden and refuses to power on. My linksys router (WRT54GL with DDWRT v24 SP2 Eko 10600) also seems to be playing up. Every so often whilst streaming from my Dreambox (500S) connected over a WPA_WDS connection I would get suddenly disconnected !?!?! Disabling the WiFi adapter and re-enabling it kinda gets me to reconnect but it's d**n frustrating when it happens during the best part of a film you're really into. (wife hates it too and gives me bad looks)

Nevertheless - yes - I've spent several hours researching, troubleshooting and tweaking to no avail Curiously it is not a case of WiFi drivers on my netbook (EeePC 901) playing up -- as even my NokiaN95 seems to disconnect right at the same time my netbook got disconnected. I really don't feel like reverting to the original Linksys firmware -- so we'll wait and see... patience is a virtue (or so they say)

On to something more positive this morning ... everybody likes lists - especially top 10 lists. This morning I encountered an article which talks about the coolest security jobs. Well I come in ranking @ number 7 and number 1 seeing that I also teach Computer Forensics for the NCC Advanced Diploma course ... Not bad ! -- according to a survey conducted by the SANS Institute.

Here a summary of the list according to Sans:

1. Information security crime investigator/forensics expert.
2. System, network and/or Web penetration tester.
3. Forensics analyst
4. (Tie) Incident response, incident handler
4. (Tie) Security architect
6. Vulnerability researcher
7. (Tie) Network security engineer
7. (Tie) Security analyst
7. (Tie) Sworn law enforcement officer specializing in information security crime
10. (Tie) CISO/ISO or director of security
10. (Tie) Application penetration tester

The top-ranking "coolest" IT security jobs according to non-government security employees:

1. (Tie) System, Network, and/or Web penetration tester
1. (Tie) Information security crime investigator/forensics expert
3. Forensics analyst
4. Vulnerability researcher
5. Application penetration tester
6. Security architect
7. CISO/ISO or director of security
8. (Tie) Incident response, incident handler
8. (Tie) Sworn law enforcement officer specializing in information security crime
10. Security evangelist

Catch the full article here...