W5-1/3 The Potential of Data Science (7/23)



   On Monday, I was showed a vulnerability dashboard that allows system owners and security officers to understand their cyber risk posture at a glance and how to do some statistic reports using it.  I had done similar work with my radio job when I had to do spin reports (how many times a song has played). It’s funny to think of how similar tasks can happen across fields. Then again, some tasks are very universal and thus such experience is good to have in general. One should not overlook tasks that may seem mundane, they may come in handy in the future

    This reminds me of my post on the importance of soft skills. In general, one should be thankful of any skill that one has under their belt. Data science is a very important to cyber security as you can keep numbers on a variety of subjects (e.g. number of breaches, number of hosts vulnerable to current Common Vulnerabilities  and Exposures, and possibly a time chart of internet usage to catch  weird activity that could be an invader on the network during late hours or perhaps a lack of work from an employee).  This also shows the importance of data; every field creates and processes data. Data happens as time goes on, we just decide what we think is important to keep track of. Because of this, data science is huge and has a massive application.

   Almost any task can benefit in some way from data analysis. These stats can be used to monitor upkeep, troubleshoot, improve efficiency, etc. Are sales meeting quota? How much power is being generated and is it enough to demand its further utilization? Which method have a higher production rate? As time moves on accessibility and utilization of data science and the extent to which it is used will be expanded across the world as these technologies become more accessible and more common in use. Sometime in the future I don’t think it is far reaching to say that by far most jobs will be using data science and data science softwares. In the future these skills will become more universal among people as computer science enters the common curriculum. In the end I suppose that I have reflected upon two things that I will be more thankful of the skills I learn even if they seem mundane and I should notice the potential of data science and maybe I should explore it more in the future. I am currently working on Splunk certifications and hope to be a certified power user soon (which I am as of now). Of course, with data science becoming more common in the future so will automation and simpler tools to do data science when one has limited skills (e.g. Pivot on Splunk). Improvements in automation and simpler software implementations like Pivot could limit the increase of data science in future curriculum but I would like to think that some aspect of data science will become more common perhaps more statistician mathematics, more common practice in spreadsheet programs like excel, etc. I think I will also try to study some more statistician mathematics later but that maybe quite some time from now because I am currently more preoccupied with algorithms and Big O notation. I'm trying to prepare myself for programmer interviews, so I think algorithms and Big O notation hold a bigger priority for me. I'm especially trying to figure out algorithms in relation to the C++ STL (Standard Template Library). 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

W7-2/3 On Being Prepared & Further Recommendations (8/11)

   One can never be fully prepared. There is always more that a person can do to prepare themselves. I wish that before starting this internship that I would have had a better understanding of the basic concepts of cyber security (e.g. passive and active defense, vulnerability factors, etc.). I also wish that I had prior experience with all the tools and software I used. If you can find out the tools used at an internship, then it’s a good idea to try and learn some of those tools. Your internship will require less training and more application which will make the experience more productive for you. If you cannot find out what tools your internship will use, then it isn’t a bad idea to browse freeware related to that field (e.g. Maltego and Zed Attack Proxy for digital forensics and pen testing respectively). Most places are trying to save money, so they probably use freeware to some capacity. The most popular freeware is your best bet and even if they don’t use it, the...
Read more

W2-2/3 Network Mapping (7/5)

On Thursday we covered network mapping. The process of network mapping usually consists of four phases: identify the space of IP addresses you are monitoring and partition the space into different categories (1). Examine the IP space (2), identify blind and confusing traffic (3), and identify clients and servers (4).    During phase one the mapping of the inventory is undetermined and remains to be IP space. A security inventory should monitor every resource's address (that it is able to) on the network (i.e. anything within or on the network an attacker can access), what resources a service is running on, at the very minimum. During phase two cyber security personal should also consider enumerating roles to make searching easier; identifying VPNs, NATs, DHCP, and proxies; keep centrality or volume metrics (e.g. monthly ephemeral summaries); per-host white lists; and monitoring the versions of all services on a particular resource. Ask what addresses make up the network?...
Read more

W1-2/3 Prioritization (6/27)

   On Wednesday we covered prioritization. What is the most important thing to respond to first? How do we determine what is and what isn't more important? How do we assess the risk being taken? How much risk is too much risk? While some matters may be more general, a lot of prioritization will be based upon what the establishment is doing, who would target them, what resources does the establishment have for defense, etc. The effectiveness of cyber response teams is determined by how appropriate the prioritization of incidents is. Randomly responding and less formalized response protocols/orders (e.g. stacks/LIFO or queues/FIFO) will hinder the potential security capabilities of an establishment. One cannot prioritize for random or abstract orders and expect any type of long-term success. It is best to make decision making and risk taking as formalized as possible. What you do is just as important as what you do first. Basically, some things are more important to attend to ri...
Read more