New Course Enquiry:
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9108318017
New Course Enquiry:
9513167997
9108318017
August 23, 2023
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Students who are willing to pursue their career in cyber security must have a good knowledge of the sub-branches of the domain. In this article, we will discuss SOC analyst vs penetration tester work, career objectives, and scope. These two are the most important professions in the industry when we talk about a decent career in the Information Technology sector. Further, we will discuss what skills you should have, and all the aspects of the jobs to help you select a better career option. If you’re confused about choosing a right career option for you, then, read this article till the end.
Contents
Every company keeps at least one SOC Analyst for monitoring real-time events and keeping an eye for what kind of traffic is coming. Then, they raise an incident and report it to respective team for further action. So, a SOC is a centralized department also known as blue team or defence security team, where a security analysts monitor their organization’s networks for vulnerabilities. They use and maintain software, like firewalls for identifying security breaches and explore when one occurs. They have data encryption programs, to protect sensitive data. Their task depends on their level like L1, L2, L3 where they have to detect threats, analyze them and take the necessary counter measures.
A SOC analyst monitors continuously for threats throughout his shift for analyzing and performing security measures. Along with it, they examine the alerts and terminate it after deciding whether there is an attack violation. If a real attack, they do a detailed examination to find the details of the attack on the systems from where the alert occurred. After the detection procedure, they take the necessary measures to avoid the same from the next attack attempt.
In addition to the general work discussed above, they can build add-ons which may be suitable for the security softwares in use. Doing this, the attacks detection and countermeasure actions can be taken in a shorter time.
SOC analyst roles include detecting the attacks coming to the network of any organization. They can see the current attack methods which the attackers are using and so have the opportunity to analyze live systems.
As SOC analysts can only detect attacks, their work is just to monitor IT environment’s assets in their area. It should always be on the alert & ready to take necessary action. The methods used differ in companies working at a global scale. SOC Analysts generally work in shifts and so irregular working hours affects analysts’ performance.
SOC analyst salaries vary widely according to the place and size of the company and the experience. There are some other criterias also, but the average salary according to the Glassdoor analyzed data is $97,586 annually as of August2022.
To make a career as a SOC Analyst, you must go with a practical-oriented training platform. Among so many, Mr Sulabh Mishra, from SIEM XPERT, having trained more than 10,000 people till now and has 12+ years of experience in the field, provides the best job-oriented SOC Analyst training with certification .
Penetration testers imitate cyberattacks to find and report security flaws on computer networks and It environment including websites. The pen testing action includes detecting vulnerabilities in the software or system by performing various security tests. systems and software belonging to IT assets. The team is also called red team or offensive team.
Penetration tester performs social engineering attack imitations on organization’s systems, software and IT assets by designing different social engineering attacks. While performing security tests, penetration testers follow latest technologies and make new attack methods according to the security. Other than the security tests, they do the source code analysis to detect security vulnerabilities in the application source code.
After doing security tests of IT infrastructures, applications, and network devices, they create reports having in-detail information regarding the things to be delivered to the customer. At an instant, a penetration tester checks for the vulnerabilities present in the IT environment that should be eliminated.
They use the same tools as of the hackers and they will check whether they are able to gain the access or not. So, if a penetration tester can penetrate a network, then a hacker can also do the same. So, a penetration tester is from a company itself, so that, they can track the weaknesses of their network before a hacker hacks. So, they have to think like an attacker and use their own logic.
The security tests a penetration testers does can be in a wide variety of areas like security tests for:
The penetration tester always applies the latest attack techniques whenever performing security tests. They use their own attack tools when detecting the vulnerabilities of the system or software in IT assets. They encounter new technologies in practice and implement them. This leads to a main advantage of being a penetration tester.
The penetration tester work includes travelling a lot on sites for internal network tests while doing security tests, as it is impossible to do these tests remotely. Besides, at the time of reporting, the content of the report becomes high and that is in direct proportion to the vulnerabilities found. Report making requires a lot more effort because the customer often does not have much technical knowledge.
Technical details must be written to the report carefully for utmost effectiveness. A disadvantage for the penetration tester is that they have very short time to do the Security tests because of the less resources to be used. In this case, it is critical that they have to be is prepared for the security test in advance.
Penetration Tester salaries mostly depend on the experience and the skills. According to the data obtained through Glassdoor, the average salary of a penetration tester is $105,500 annually as of August 2022.
Working environments, job roles, salaries and responsibilities for SOC analyst and penetration testing vary according to the country of the organization, and the candidates own knowledge. However, if we talk about opportunity in the market, SOC Analyst is in high-demand because as per the government compliance, every company should have a investigator to find the activities happening in the network. In SOC, you’ve t o keep an eye 24/7 while Penetration testing is done either monthly or weekly. This is the reason opportunities and grwoth of a penetration tester is less. What is important for the employee here is that he/she works decently and enjoys doing the job.
We do offer our trainings at your city also :
SOC Analyst Training in Gurgaon , SOC Analyst Training in Hyderabad , SOC Analyst Training in Indore , SOC Analyst Training in Jabalpur , SOC Analyst Training in Kanpur , SOC Analyst Training in Kochi
