Breaking in to Security - Part 1
The aim of this project is to try to answer the question that regularly gets posted to the mailing lists or directly to individuals, "How do I get started in security?". To do this I've created a questionnaire which I hope covers the questions that are usually included along with initial request such as "Do I need to be able to program?"
The questionnaire is aimed at people from every level of the industry, people who have just started to the pillars of the community who were hacking stone tablets before the Internet was even thought of. I'd love to get as wide a cross section as possible as every point of view counts, the industry experts have lots of advice to offer and have probably seen most mistakes made by new comers many times but also the opinions of those who have just started are equally as relevant as they have just done it and have the scars to prove it.
I've already submitted a talk about this topic to Bsides London but whether it gets accepted or not I'll put all the results together and write them up when I get a significant amount. As the community is growing all the time with new people joining I'll leave the questionnaire open and try to come back to it periodically to update my findings.
Some of the questions below may seem like ways to start flame wars (especially the programming language one) but the I'm trying to cover the questions which get asked all the time so at least I'll be able to say that X% of the respondents thought Y was the best answer. If you think I've missed important questions, or answers to questions, then let me know and I'll see about adding them.
Please, fill in the questionnaire and ask as many people as you know to join in, with this data I would love to be able to give a one link answer to all the mails that start "I'm interested in getting into security....."
