Security Engineers are critical to every organization’s security. They form the backbone of an enterprise’s cyber security posture. Just as the organizations protect the physical assets, it is also necessary to ensure the security of the digital assets. With the adaptation of modern technology in all sectors, the security of the digital assets is at stake. Hackers try to break into systems, steal data, and demand ransom by encrypting files. A security engineer ensures that the best security controls are in place to avoid any of these from happening.
Security Engineer is a general term that refers to and covers many roles in the cyber security domain. However, in this article, we will discuss the general concepts, responsibilities, and what it takes to be a Security Engineer.
Who is a Security Engineer?
A Security Engineer designs secure systems, networks, and applications. They identify threats and risks that could harm the organization. Their role is defensive, focusing on threat prevention, vulnerability detection, and security compliance.
Expectations
It is important to know what organizations expect from a security engineer. Organizations perceive a security engineer as someone who
- Implements solutions to secure network and infrastructure
- Takes the responsibility for the overall security of the organization
- Routinely checks for the security robustness
- Identifies loopholes and mitigates them
- Minimizes the security risk and keeps improving it
Responsibilities
Although a security engineer has many responsibilities, but following are some critical ones. The companies may want all or a subset of these.
Asset Management
It is very important to know what assets an organization has so that they can be protected. Therefore, maintaining an inventory of all digital assets is crucial for securing them. Furthermore, it is equally important to keep updating this inventory to add new or remove unwanted assets. An asset inventory generally contains the following data
- Asset Name
- Asset Type
- IP Address
- Physical Location
- Network Location (in segregated network)
- Application(s) running on asset
- Access Permissions
- Asset Owner
This data will be helpful in troubleshooting as well as identifying the culprit in case of any insider threat.
Security policies
It is impossible to achieve 100% security as nothing is perfectly secure. However, we can improve the security posture to make it extremely difficult for attackers to gain access to the assets. Every organization has a set of security principles that outline the guidelines and the best practices. On the basis of these principles, the security policies are created. A policy is a document that contains the rules and procedures on how to implement security. These policies are enforced and must be followed by everyone. A security engineer helps the organization create these policies and is somehow also responsible for enforcing them.
Secure by Design
Since the security assessments expose issues, but fixing them all at once can be challenging. Therefore, it is important to follow the secure by design principal in which, the security is ensured across all SDLC phases. A security engineer integrates and implements solutions that help ensure this principal.
Security Awareness
Although the humans are the building blocks of any company, it is said that humans are the weakest link in an organization’s security. Therefore, it is necessary for a security engineer to run awareness sessions. These will help employees understand new attacks and how can they protect themselves. Eventually protecting the organization.
Security Assessment and Assurance
Even though a security engineer ensures proper security controls across the assets. It is necessary to conduct the security assessments to find any unnoticed loopholes and mitigate them. A security engineer plans to conduct the pentest engagements, red-team exercises, and security audits. All of this is to ensure security with the help of internal as well as the external teams.
Compliance and Audits
Depending on the operating industry, location, and other factors, a company may be subject to various compliance standards. These may include ISO27001, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOC, etc. A security engineer works closely with both internal and external auditors to detect any non-compliance issues and effectively address them.
Business Continuity
Disasters do not come by informing first. Therefore, a company must be ready to cater any disasters. Also, the clients do not understand the nature of disaster. Rather they want a smooth experience. A company must have a business continuity plan to keep providing the services to its clients. A security engineer must discuss with the higher management to prioritize the assets. This will help make proper backup plans for critical assets to ensure smooth customer experience.
Tabletop Exercises
The tabletop exercises are conducted to evaluate the operational readiness of a company. A security engineer must discuss certain scenarios to exercise in the company. For example, a scenario might include compromise of a system via a virus. The team members must divide the responsibilities and act upon as per the playbook.
Managing Risks
For securing a company, we must be able to identify what are the threats. It is equally important to find the risk factors. Identifying the risks, their likelihood and impact is the job of a security engineer. To prioritize the risk on the basis of business impact and suggest the mitigations. So that these risks may be fixed. Also, it may not be feasible to eliminate all risks. Therefore, decisions are made to accept some risks.
Accepting a risk is business critical decision. The subject matter expert acts as the trusted advisor to accept the risk. So one must think well about a risk before deciding to accept it.
What not to expect from a security engineer?
The security engineers ensure the security of a company. It does not mean that the company is 100% secure. It is upon everyone to follow the security guidelines and principles. A security engineer can create policies but everyone else must abide by and act upon those rules.
Conclusion
A Security Engineer helps protect an organization from cyber threats. They secure networks, systems, and data. Their job includes setting up security measures, monitoring for attacks, and responding to incidents. They work with firewalls, access controls, and vulnerability fixes.
As threats keep evolving, security engineers must stay up to date with latest trends, risks, and threats. Certifications such as CompTIA Security+, CEH, CISSP, etc will be a great help in improving the skills and expertise. Moreover, practicing on TryHackMe and HackTheBox are good platforms for cyber security learning. As businesses rely more on technology, security is more important than ever. Since, for a business, trust is important for their customers. Security Engineers play a key role in preventing attacks and protecting sensitive data. Thus ensuring the trust among clients.
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