It was a long day at work yesterday. Some days things don’t go as planned, because something blows up, and that was the case yesterday. I’m sure I’ll write it up someday. Right now I fear it’s still in the early stages.
But it’s a turning point of sorts.
I spent lots of hours on marathon conference calls like this as a fairly low-ranking sysadmin. Mostly I took and executed orders, and every once in a while, was given permission to speak up.
This time I’m a low-ranking decision maker. I’m actually kind of in a good place, though, because I have admin rights on the servers. So I can go in and observe, rather than just taking someone’s word for it. I also still know how to go in and observe.
If a sysadmin or a vendor tries to feed us a line, I can go in and check. I can straddle the line between decision maker and sysadmin or engineer. When the situation calls for empathy, I can provide empathy. When the situation calls for a covert IM to a higher-ranking decision maker to the effect that I think someone isn’t telling the whole truth… I can do that too.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He started his career as a part-time computer technician in 1994, worked his way up to system administrator by 1997, and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He invests in real estate on the side and his hobbies include O gauge trains, baseball cards, and retro computers and video games. A University of Missouri graduate, he holds CISSP and Security+ certifications. He lives in St. Louis with his family.