Today, I want to look at soft skills; more precisely, one soft skill in particular, namely problem solving. Yes, that old chestnut, the one everyone seems to need to put on their CV, from janitorial staff and burger flippers to IT practitioners of all flavours. But why am I writing about it now? Because it’s not a very well understood skill, and it is only half of what a CyberSec pro needs. Confused? I’ll explain. As I’ve mentioned previously, one way for CyberSec personnel to test themselves and keep their skill sharp, while learning or while actively engaged in a position, is wargames (you can find a good list of them here ). Hack boxes, CTF’s (Capture the Flag) and so on are a great way to introduce you into thinking about the issue faced and the problems that need solving in context. It helps build your problem-solving skills by presenting you with common, and not so common, challenges, which you must overcome with your wits and technical know-how. Problem solving as we ...
Why Bastard Academic, you ask? You put the word Gentleman before both terms: the Gentleman Academic and the Gentleman Bastard (at least according to Scott Lynch). The intention here will be to collect some of my Cyber Security blogs for CoderSource.io, as well as supplementary information and resources on and around the field. I will also throw in the odd instructional post on things I'm learning or working on, as well as the occasional political theorising/ranting and philosophical musing.