When you first look at a field – be it infosec or fine arts or whatever – you see the rockstars, the ones who made it, and you might get convinced, that these are all that field needs. In this talk, I beg to differ.
In this first part, I want to discard that idea that many, especially new-joiners, have that to make a difference in infosec, you have to be a hacker-prodigy with 100 CVEs to your name and five top tier research papers on new exploit techniques. Not only is that in my experience not needed, but what the companies I worked with needed were people who are ready to do the blatantly obvious and boring tasks. So as an encouragement for those who might still be unsure if they are needed, I want to highlight some tasks that would save several large companies’ butts – if anyone had the grit and patience to pull through on them instead of looking for the next rockstar gig.
When it comes to art, I want to highlight the individual approach and what kind of (boring and tedious) grunt work is and always has been the invisible foundation of any artist you’ve ever admired a painting of. In my experience, people try “art”, dismiss themselves as untalented or not creative enough and give up. The truth is, especially at the beginning you have lots of exercises to do that require neither talent nor creativity but just the willingness to keep going when you think you’re not good enough (yet). I’ll show and demonstrate what these things are, how progress on these tasks looks and how you can throw in some motivating indicators of progress.