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Hay , My Name is Mohamed 20 Years Old , From Egypt !

Want To Start in the Security Career , Suggest My A Plan ,

I Have No Knowledge in This Field But I Wanna Discover !

@Cisco

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Security is less of a field on its own and more an “aspect” of other fields. A few places hire people who do only security, but these are very rare. What is far more likely is getting into security of systems or networks or software. You will want to pick the base career path and add security on on top of that. Don’t think of security as being its own career path. It does exist, but few career paths have fewer jobs and more people competing for them.

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So You Mean i Will Not Have A Job !

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Are you selecting this career because it “sounds cool” or because you have seen a lot of jobs out there? I’ve been in IT for 26 years and worked in some of the worlds biggest, most secure companies including big governments, banks, military, etc. and while security jobs exist they are extremely rare and very specialized and almost never (in my experience) hire out of “security” careers but from standard IT careers.

I’ve been asked to lead a security task force to the Middle East with a team of thirty for some of the hardest core security ever - and one thing that no one asked for, not the government, not the sponsors and not the security vendors was for anyone to have “security” experience.

I truly believe that this entire movement to get “security” jobs is a myth made up by universities to sell classes to people who think that it sounds cool. Have you ever met someone who has gotten a job with no training but “security”?

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What do you have experience with and what do you enjoy?

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i Want To Find A Field For Me , To Work Easy , And I Love To hack sometimes , but i hate black hackers , i want stop them . !

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You could start with CompTIA Security+ certification. From there you could work towards becoming CEH certified (Certified Ethical Hacker), which I’ve heard is extremely difficult.

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No good field is easy on its own, but any field that you love will likely be easy for you. Finding what you love helps, a lot.

Are you interesting in IT or programming?

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Just be aware, Sec+ will get you zero jobs. I have one, it’s a good thing and I like the cert. I love seeing people who have it because it is a good point for showing that they understand some basics and are “security aware.”

Sec+ really has no value unless you have a career to back it up. I was just interviewed about this last week. If I have a Net+, then an MCSE, getting the Sec+ is a nice “icing on my IT cert cake” but that is all that it is. Icing without the cake doesn’t make much sense or do you any good. Get the cake before worrying about the icing. There is no career path that starts with the Sec+.

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Salaam Mo! It sounds like you’re interested in something akin to penetration testing, so I’d look into that. There are certifications for this, but they’re about as useful as a note from your father saying you can hack, so don’t waste your money, but certainly study the material, no matter what it is you end up doing.

In addition to what Scott Alan Miller (SAM) said above, I suggest perhaps starting in general IT and/or system administration to get you a good foundation, it takes years to become a security expert, and after all that time, nobody knows enough… not even myself of course.

I realise that probably a lot of your peers are trying to jump into IT, but you can set yourself apart by focusing on things outside the circle. I’m not sure how things work in Egypt, but I’ve got many Lebanese and Palestinian friends (and one Syrian and Saudi) and what I’ve noticed is that IT in the Levant is the focus only on Microsoft and often more of a focus on hardware trouble shooting rather than learning the software.

So I suggest looking into learning Linux and BSD and possibly perusing certifications in those areas, primarily because there’s a labour shortage, where as if I’m looking for a Windows sysadmin I can swing a dead cat and hit one there are so many.

Also, a side note with your English. Only capitalise letters at the begging of words, people’s names, and there are a few other rules to follow. Generally, if you are unsure, just only capitalise the first letter of a sentence. Arabic may not have capital letters, but that doesn’t mean you should get gungho when writing English :wink: Not only is it unprofessional, but it often can be harder for people to read. Your English is great though, I am only making suggestions for your writing/typing, not anything else. Arabs correct my Arabic every time I speak, so I’m just passing it along :wink:

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You are the best reply , thank you very much , i love your way of expressing your opinion and never kill the dreams like the one (AMS) -_-

thank you very much , Bahbk by Arabic ,

my English good in this comment O.o

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I would highly suggest getting training & a job in something like systems administration or network administration, while also taking courses and certs for different areas of security on different platforms. It should be supplemental to what you do, not your core focus. Having a diversity in your resume will make you that much more flexible, as well as employable.

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