Cyber Careers – Level 1 Tech Support by Karen Tulloh

Next in our series exploring different cybersecurity careers takes us to Madrid, Spain. Note that this is basically a first tier technical support position by name – but there is quite a bit of security mixed in to the actual work.

Name? Today’s Cyber Professional prefers to remain anonymous

Where are you located? Madrid, Spain

JOB

Who do you work for?

A telecommunications company in Madrid, Spain

Your job title?

Level 1 Technical Support

How many years have you worked in cybersecurity? 4 years

What do you do in your job?

Basically, I attend technical incidents to the company clients because my job position is “support,” but because the company doesn’t have a cybersecurity department, I have to defend the infrastructure from attacks (the last was CoinHive through a vulnerability in the bandwidth server included in MikroTik devices).

I am developing command and control solutions (based basically in Zabbix, Security Onion and some custom-made Linux solutions) in order to get the necessary tools to control, manage and defend the company network. We don’t have a cybersecurity budget, so I have to adapt to win and use my skills and creativity to resolve problems.

What do you like most about your job?

I can do almost everything the company needs for its cyber protection because I am the only one who has cybersecurity training, and nobody tells me what to do, so I have plenty of liberty. However, on our support team there are people with a very good network skills (two of them are CCNPs) but they don’t have a cybersecurity background, and security is always an integrated process.

Least?

No organization, no planning, no inventory control, 24×7 upkeep, 9-10 work hours per day (plus 4 hours to go and return to the company HQ), and a low salary.

What work did you do prior to this position? Computer forensics as a judicial expert and pentester.

What do you see as your next step? A cybersecurity job in another country or my own company.

Salary range for your position? Equivalent of $15,000-$17,000 USD per year (Gross salary, before taxes. Tax rates in Spain differ depending where you reside). This means less than $1,120. net income per month (approximately).

In Spain, the minimum net income per month that you need to live is between $1,150-$1,400. Based on the pay above, an employee does not make enough to live. [Note: we translated everything to US Dollars. In Spain you are paid in Euros)

EDUCATION & GROWTH

Degree or no degree? Yes, I have a degree and several post-degree courses.

If degree, what degree? Journalism degree.

Certifications held? CCNA R&S, CCNA Security (in a few weeks), CCNA CyberOps. I am also preparing for Kali Linux OSCP and Linux LPIC (I have been using Linux for years and I am a competent Linux sysadmin but in Spain the certification is more important than the competence so that the companies can justify to their clients their capacities developing IT solutions).

What do you do to stay up-to-date or grow in cyber? Study, practice and repeat. I also read many books, tutorials and manuals. I have little social life, so I can spend many hours in front of my computer.

Favorite cyber news source and/or podcast? I use several sources like LinkedIn, CyberSecurity News (<https://cybersecuritynews.es/>) or Null Byte (one of the best, <https://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/>). I usually read almost everything in English because in Spanish there isn’t good cybersecurity information and you find that is almost always an English translation. [Editor’s note – interesting, for native English speakers]

However, if I need good sources, the best ones are those where I can connect to “cybersecurity experts” (I mean real cyber criminals). It can appear that is a “hidden world” where you can’t access but it’s very easy – they don’t hide at all.

This can be seem a little controversial but, if you want to succeed in your defense, you have to know your enemies (in Spain cybercrime is rising and almost always unpunished). Moreover, in cybersecurity, you have to defend everything, the bad guys only need to find one weak spot.

ANYTHING ELSE/OTHER COMMENTS:

I want to thank Karen for the hard work doing this research and for the opportunity she gave all of us to know how it is working in cybersecurity around the world.  (Thank you for participating, from Karen)

View the original post here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cyber-careers-10-level-1-tech-support-tulloh-pmp-cissp-cism/

If you are interested in contributing to this project you can contact Karen on LinkedIn or send an email to KarenTCyber@gmail.com.