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Required Knowledge for a Career in Network Security
mtgarden asks: "I am trying to decide if I want to make a career shift into network security. I enjoy learning about cutting edge technologies and find security interesting. I am not especially good at programing but would potentially enjoy the analysis side of security. Where would I start studying to learn whether this field is a good fit for me?"
You clearly are a security professional, as you skipped all the actual initial steps, probably because you're so used to them :)
The FIRST thing to do is learn the mechanics of the system(s) you are protecting. There are a lot of "generic" classes of threats out there, some relevant to certain systems, some to all. Before you can begin trying to protect against them, however, you need to completely understand:
1. If/how they affect the systems you're protecting.
2. What about your system makes the threat especially dangerous or nominal.
3. What mechanisms your system has to wall off such threats, if any.
You can't truly secure a system you don't inside and out, no matter how much security "theory" you know, so the FIRST step is making sure you understand the technology at your disposal, even before you try to understand what threatens to compromise it.
From now on, I buy only Intel.
As with most things involving deep technical expertise, you don't choose the career so much as the career chooses you. Here's how it goes for network security:
You work as a junior network administrator.
You get interested in the security aspects.
You find you have a knack for it and tend to spend any unassigned manhours scanning logs for connection attempts and looking up the ports to see what the originator was attempting.
Your boss notices that you have a knack for it and lets you spend more time working on it.
You start reading the available literature to gain more insight.
A job comes along where they're looking for a network security specialist instead of a general network admin. You apply and get the job.
With all of your work-hours spent on network security your rate of learning increases.
You run in to a few unusual situations and start to consult with experts on the 'net.
etc.
At some point you cross a line. Now you are one the experts and folks consult with you.
You'll notice there is no coursework listed anywhere in there. It wasn't an oversight. Coursework provides a decent overview for folks who don't have the knack. It lets them get by without being completely ignorant. Someone with the knack, someone who should consider network security as a career path, will get the same results by spending an evening with a book.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
You must be able to write very long reports that management and the board of directors will be reading. You will use terms like "Due Care and Diligence", "Disaster Recovery" and "Business Continuity Planning". Security professionals don't provide anything tangible to a business so to prove your value you must consider every potantial problem and document it in advance even if management doesn't even read your reports. This is the only way to cover your ass.
So many people consider Network Security to be about running sploits and such, but really its about risk management. Have a good look at certifications such as CISSP, read some of the self training books and if you don't get bored to tears reading them then think about what it would take to write them because thats what you'll be doing 90% of your time.
Information security is a pretty large field, with different professionnals who may have very different backgrounds and expertises. The OP talks about network security, which is a subset of information security, but it is far from the only "kind" of security job out there.
Traditionnally, the easiest way to get into network security is by first being a network engineer/sysadmin. As you learn the ins and outs of networks administration, you'll have to tackle the related security issues at one point or another. Nowaday, all good sysadmins must have at least some general knowledge in security; the difference between the amateur and the professional is thus only in term of scope and depth.
Now, maybe that's not really what you were looking for when you said "network security". The part about wishing to do analysis rings a bell. There's a lot of other jobs out there in information security that have absolutely nothing to do with networks; you can do systems assessment, audits, business recovery, and other similar projects. While these kinds of activities also require some technical background, they must be backed by strong analytical abilities and a good grasp of how to do proper documentation and follow methodologies. Depending of your inclination, this may be sound fun and rewarding, or boring as hell. The typical career part of these "security professionals" is very different than from the network dudes. A BS in computer science is almost a must, and the best way to get some experience is probably to have some kind of intership with a security consultant firm.
There's a few certifications out there that can also raise your value and awareness in the field, althought personnally I believe that experience is much more important. The CISSP is the most common, but it is targeted more to the security professionals than to the networks dudes. Unfortunately, you can't pass it without prior experience in the field (3 or 4 years - I don't remember). Other certifications, such as the ones offered by the SANS, are generally more technical in nature (which isn't bad, just different). Look for their GIAC certifications paths.
IA can be divided into 7 categories:
There are also several dimensions of each category:
I would recommend that you investigate each one to see where your personal strengths might make the best fit. If you enjoy math, then you might want to specialize in crytography, passwords, and secure communication. If you enjoy the business side of things, you can look at developing corporate policies on security matters. If, like you said originally, you've decided on network security, you can focus on network packets, matching attack patterns, creating router and firewall rulesets to block known (and unknown) attacks. Network security can also include network hardening: knowing what services are running, why, and who has the right to use them; and then restrict everything that is outside of that approved use.
Obviously there is a lot to it, but the point to be made here is that you should look at all of the different facets of Information Assurance and find the direction that is right for your skills and interests. Many of the fields will overlap and a well rounded security professional will be talented in many of these directions.
Another important quality of a security professional is a strong set of ethics. You will probably at some point have access to very sensitive information, and you must have the ethics and tact to handle those situations correctly.
An important bit of advice on the side: Before you use any security tools on a network, get permission in writing from the appropriate authority (the higher up the better).