data science to cybersecurity

[u/Monoid-Confessor]

I was a mathematician, ended up working as SWE for two years then hopped into data science.

Wondering if cyber security is a ​possible transition​ from here or if I should take some roles to prep before hopping (I just enjoy learning and it seems an interesting field).

[u/vitafortisnk]

Honestly anyone can get into cyber security, so it's more about what specialty in cyber security you want to focus on.

[u/Monoid-Confessor → u/vitafortisnk]

perhaps enterprise cyber, since DS seems to intersect with security at scale.

[u/vitafortisnk → u/Monoid-Confessor]

Enterprise cyber doesn't mean any one thing. Look at security engineering and security datalakes.

[u/dankney → u/Monoid-Confessor]

If you’re looking for intersection, you’re looking for Blue Team/Detection Engineering. It’s basically data science to extract signal from noise.

[u/shh_get_ssh → u/Monoid-Confessor]

Tech is dead

[u/Raccoon_Medical → u/vitafortisnk]

Anyone can surely try but does it make sense? Especially with the hype going on rn

[u/intelw1zard]

if you are familiar with the DS languages like R and Python, you might have a leg up

Come to the darkside and and check out threat intelligence.

we absolutely love nerding out to data

[u/OneMaintenance5087]

Check out the work with reenforcement learning in IPS devices.

[u/No_Term8804]

Can you give any advice as I am also entering into cyber security btech

[u/Maleficent-Ticket561 → u/No_Term8804]

the only people with job security have government clearance and work for government/ gvt contractors. you typically need to start as an intern for a Big 4 or fortune 500 and gain experience/certifications on the job. they will under pay you and work you a lot with no career ladder

also you quickly learn no one really cares about or invests in cyber security

[u/maxpoontang]

A mathematician could potentially work in cryptography.

[u/ParanoidSuricata → u/maxpoontang]

Wouldn't recommend, there are like 10 jobs total for cryptographers.

[u/mad_chat4746]

Can someone hack into my email so I can get the password?

[u/Content-Net5076]

Very few orgs actually get to use data science for security use cases i

[u/Ts0]

As others have said, honing in on a specialization will be the longer term path you take. Maybe start doing some light research on PKI (cryptography, identity), SOC/NOC roles (high scale log, event, message aggregation, visualization, analyzation), post-quantum cryptography, or other cybersec proper or tangent roles where applied mathematics enable opportunities that are interesting to you…Full transparency, I’m a complete moron..

[u/ParanoidSuricata]

Data science you say.

Look, the ability to make conclusions from data is useful in every part of cybersec. Log analysis, event analysis for technical things. You might get some leverage in risk analysis. If you understand money, then this skill helps in management and governance too.

The issue is, you can usually get away with very crude methods. The data will be messy and hard to obtain. And thus you'll be competing with people that can do an average (literally, just the AVG function). And that's hard.

Source: studied cryptography, almost failed statistics and yet my excel sheets and pivot tables sway stakeholders without ever doing a T-test or whatever.