7MS #342: Interview with Matt McCullough

7 Minute Security

Matt McCullough (a.k.a. Matty McFly on Slack) joined me in the studio to talk about his wild and crazy path to security. He started literally with no technical experience, but through a lot of hard work, aggressive networking and taking advantage of educational and career opportunities, Matt now rocks a SOC job. Matt and I sat down to talk about a lot of good stuff:

• How to start an IT career as "the family IT guy"

• Leveraging a higher education (at places like Lake Superior College to meet people of influence and start networking like a beast

• Entry level sysadmin and helpdesk jobs are fun - great opportunities to make the most of the position, build your skills and stretch yourself outside your comfort zone

• MSPs (Managed Service Providers) are another great way to see different clients/verticals/systems and the various requirements that go into supporting them. From there, look for opportunities to start securing those organizations, as many MSPs don't dabble heavily into the security realm.

• If you're going to school for cybersecurity training, look for ways to leverage your status to get discounts on security training, such as with SANS

• Competitions like CCDC are awesome. You're given a handful of servers that are full of vulnerabilities, and you essentially are tasked with defending a network against a professional group of pentesters/redteamers. You even have to deal with real-life "injections" (other random emergencies and mock customers to deal with) while you're in the thick of the battle!

• Join local cyber clubs (or start your own)! Looking for a fun CTF to get started in a group setting? Try hacking the OWASP Juice Shop

• Attend security conferences(or start your own)!

...more notes at 7MS.us!