Problem Solving Flashcards
Problems happen every day, and security is no exception. Things break, new threats arise, and attacks occur. Working in security operations involves a lot of triaging security events, identifying problems, and working with others to get them addressed. Being able to solve problems in an effective and timely manner is an extremely useful skill for any career.
Incident responders are great at what they do because they’re able to work well under pressure and have strong problem-solving skills. Problem-solving links to security roles and works in many different ways:
Analyzing: Using disciplined thought processes to evaluate each possible solution. Besides listing their costs and benefits, you might apply deductive reasoning, game theory, and the rules of logic (including fallacies) to them.
Deciding: The ability to decide on a solution and move forward with it. After an appropriate amount of time, an analysis of possible solutions, and feedback from team members, a designated decider must choose and implement a solution.
Managing Emotions: Applying emotional intelligence to improve your own and team members’ ability to think clearly. This requires you to recognize emotions in yourself and others, manage feelings, and channel emotions into useful work.
Don’t be afraid to think outside of the box, and come up with creative solutions to address problems. At the same time, if you are completely stuck don’t be afraid to ask for help, and don’t spend too long focused on one problem if you’re really unsure how to approach it.
Skill Development
There are a number of ways you can increase your problem-solving skills, below we have compiled a list of resources that can help you to become a stronger problem solver.
Online puzzles and logic-based games - can help to improve your logical and mathematical ability to solve problems, bringing transferable skills to the security industry.
Capture the flag events - As previously mentioned, CTFs are an incredible way to gain experience with cybersecurity and soft skills. Problem-solving is definitely something that can be developed with completing these events as you will be required to analyze and find solutions to complete a challenge in order to gain the flag value.
Blue Team Labs Online - BTLO is our gamified lab platform with free and paid content covering a range of blue team scenarios and investigations. This is a great way to expand your knowledge of both red and blue team practices and really challenges you to solve problems, building on this important soft skill.
Other training platforms - Such as PentesterLab, PicoCTF, TryHackMe, OverTheWire, and of course, Security Blue Team courses!
