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by mpettitt 2148 days ago
It's important to note that while there are a lot of skills which can be useful, it's fairly rare to find a job which requires them all.

For example, if you have a mobile application specialist, they probably don't need to worry about, say, VLAN configuration on a regular basis. It's quite likely that even if they do know it, the lack of use will result in them not showing that knowledge well in an interview situation. If you give them a few hours and an internet connection, though, they may well be able to refamiliarise themselves easily. Alternatively, you just need to hire someone who specialises in network architecture and segregation - this does rely on the person doing the hiring to know vaguely what they need, though, which is not always the case.

I work in the industry, and there are people who are well known as experts in specific fields, but who I would never expect to be able to do some other aspects of my job, just as I would struggle to do things they can do without any difficulty.

I think the cyber security industry is at the stage where the web was 15-20 years ago, where a company would hire a "webmaster" who did all the web related stuff, rather than getting a combination of people in different roles each specialising in one area. It's slowly getting better, but it's still common for companies to look for a jack of all trades security person, rather than getting the specific knowledge they need.

2 comments

Totally agree, it's not really possible for a hacker or security specialist to excel at all categories. Some people become an expert in web injection, others in buffer overflows, network attacks or crypto. The field has become way too wide for one person to have expert knowledge in everything.
>I think the cyber security industry is at the stage where the web was 15-20 years ago, where a company would hire a "webmaster" who did all the web related stuff, rather than getting a combination of people in different roles each specialising in one area

This is an interesting view. You really think so? The use case of the "web" /website industry is so much wider. I feel like cybersecurity companies are struggling a lot more to come up with an actual product and continues to be more of a consultancy type business. I know in China a lot of the smaller cybersecurity startups have eventually been folded into either alibaba or tencent cause it's so hard to come up with a product that people want to buy.