Welcome to Adventures in Cybersecurity: The Defender Series

I’m happy to say I’m done chasing Microsoft certifications (AZ104/AZ500/SC100), and as a result, I’ve had the time to put some effort into a blog series that hopefully will entertain and inform you with some of the topics around cybersecurity. As a security consultant/architect, I work with all the subjects I’ll be discussing, so there will be use-case examples presented that will help explain some of the topics in a more real-world sense.

The blog project that I am embarking on will cover 30 topics in 30 blog posts, and they will post once per week starting next Monday, March 4.

The first five topics will be:

1. Cloud Architecture, Frameworks, and Benchmarks
2. Cost Management Tips for Cyber Admins
3. Cybersecurity Documentation Essentials
4. Evaluating Your Security Posture: Security Assessment Basics
5. Zero Trust Essentials

Red, Blue, Purple?

All the topics discussed are ‘Blue Team’-related. For this exercise, there will be no discussion around ‘Red Team’ topics like pen testing and vulnerability exploits. Luckily, for those interested, we have a great deal of information on Red Teams. Please check out: Want To Become A Red Teamer? This Is What You Need To Know, The Beauty of a Red Team Exercise: When One Discovery Leads to Potentially Saving Lives, and Red, Purple, and Blue: The Colors of a Successful Cybersecurity Testing Program.

Who are these Posts For?

While I believe my upcoming blogs will be interesting to a wide variety of security practitioners, I did write them with a specific audience in mind. These blog posts are intended for the following audiences:

• Security Architects – several security frameworks will be discussed.
• Security Admins – there are labs for most of the posts in GitHub.
• Security Auditors – every post is mapped to several compliance controls in a spreadsheet format that you’re welcome to download and share.

Is There Anything Other Than Blog Posts Here?

As mentioned above, many of the posts are accompanied by a lab (in GitHub) with instructions for getting started with the presented topic and/or technology.

Additionally, each topic is mapped to several related compliance controls (for our auditor friends) and you can download this table from GitHub.

Fun You Say?

Sure, why can’t we have some fun, too? I've created a bit of a ‘backstory’ to accompany the labs that I’ve named “Dom1nus vs ZPM International.” For additional excitement, I even came up with a neat image.

Let’s Get Started

I realize I have not given many details on what is to come, but please be assured the information posted over the next several months will be interesting and helpful to those tasked with defending their organization. Also, I hope that the audience will provide feedback and expand on the topics presented.

The combination of posts, labs, and audit tools is intended as an easy starter path for some important security topics.

Thanks for your interest.