Brite Spotlight: Meet Sean and Nick, SOC Analysts

We often talk about people, process and technology when it comes to Brite and our managed services.  While our process and technology are highlighted elsewhere, we want to showcase our people!  As our team and services grow, it’s important to introduce the members of the team who are behind the scenes executing on the process.  Within the past year, we welcomed two SOC analysts to the team to help work with clients on their IT environments.  Now it’s time for you to meet them!  

Meet Sean and Nick, both graduates from Utica College’s cybersecurity program and past Brite interns.  They kindly answered a few questions to share about their roles at Brite. 

A brief overview of your SOC analyst job + daily tasks. 

Sean: I’ve been working at Brite for just over five months now as a security analyst. A security analyst detects, mitigates, and protects against cyber threats. 

In my role, I review assessments and help identify risk within our client’s infrastructure to ensure their data and information remains safe, research newfound cyber vulnerabilities and analyze network information.

Nick: I’m a Security Analyst and have worked at Brite for 10 months. I monitor network activity for Brite and its clients.  Tasks include checking reports, making security recommendations to clients (ranging from firewall or IDS/IPS configuration changes, up to and including recommending new technologies), staying up to date with security information and news, consulting with clients on a daily basis to answer security-related questions and assist with security and network operations.

What is your favorite part about being a security analyst (at Brite)?

Sean: My favorite part about being a security analyst at Brite is working with the team, and all the different clients on a daily basis.

Nick: I love working with the Brite security team every day. I also learn something new every day at my job; and it provides me with a sense of fulfillment.

What 3 words would you use to describe your job?

Sean: Three words to describe my job would be: Exciting, Growing, and Fun.

Nick: I would say my job is fun, complex and fluid (it’s new every day and changing).

What do you think is the biggest misconception about working as a security analyst?

Sean: I think the biggest misconception about being a security analyst is that you just sit at a desk and stare at a computer screen all day.

Nick: Movies are an area of a lot of misinformation. Something you always see in the movies is two “hackers” ferociously typing away trying to defend their network or hack a system. The reality is most work gets done when there is no typing at all. You are ingesting the information, thinking, and communicating with your team.

What kinds of security risks are you seeing?

Sean: I see tons of security risks associated with outdated systems and software.

Nick: Today the biggest security threat is phishing attacks. These attacks have become highly sophisticated and very targeted which allows for emails to bypass spam filters. One bad choice could cripple a network. 

Are there any emerging trends/threats that you think will be a problem?

Sean: The biggest emerging threat or problem I see trending right now are threat actors taking advantage of the COVID-19 crisis. There has been a big increase in phishing emails associated with COVID, and newfound vulnerabilities associated with remote working.

Nick: What concerns me most is the growing number of medical IoT devices. Medical devices now rely on network connections to run efficiently and properly.  With medical devices the concern shifts from financial loss to the potential for human loss.

And there you have it, Brite’s newest SOC Analysts. Huge thanks to the two for taking the time to share insights into their roles.