How to get better security people

Kelly J. Cooper kcooper at genuity.net
Tue Mar 26 19:54:11 UTC 2002


On Mar 26,  2:15pm, Sean Donelan wrote:
> Subject: Re: How to get better security people
*
*On Tue, 26 Mar 2002, Tony Wasson wrote:
*> >> If I was looking for top security talent, what would I ask for whether
*> >> I was hiring directly or outsourcing?
*>
*> I agree with Steve Wilcox, incidents are important. I would ask for a
*> description of the 3 most interesting incidents they've ever worked on,  and
*> what they contributed.
*
*I'm sorry, but that's confidential information and I can't disclose it.
*
*Would you hire a "security" person, who will likely be involved in the
*most embarrassing slip ups your company makes, if he tells people about
*"interesting" incidents at previous employers.
*
*Maybe, it depends on what he says.

Long ago and downstairs, when I used to interview people for Operations
Security, I asked each candidate whether s/he had ever handled a Denial
of Service attack or an intrusion, and if so, could they describe in 
general terms how they handled it?

I would specifically ask them to NOT provide any identifying info, just
the process (and an explication of the attack) so I could gauge their
understanding of the situation.

I also had a short list of other questions that I used to try and get
a feel for the person's "security minded-ness" (my term, I invented it
a'ight?).  Because when it comes to ISP security, there's a very 
limited pool of talent so candidates are unlikely to come in with the
right skillset native.  

But if the person comes in and s/he is someone who thinks about 
scenarios and contingency plans and has a working knowledge of 
networking/computing, then I can teach him/her everything else.

Kelly J.

-- 
Kelly J. Cooper        -  Security Engineer, CISSP
GENUITY                -  Main # - 800-632-7638 
3 Van de Graaff Drive  -  Fax - 781-262-2744
Burlington, MA 01803   -  http://www.genuity.net



More information about the NANOG mailing list