What position am I on the security hockey team?

I just got caught up again on some of my favorite blogs. Among those is the TaoSecurity run by Richard Bejtlich. If you ever get to speak with him, take one of his classes or generally hang out with him, take the time. You can sponge quite a bit listening to him and those that flock around him. Anyway on to the point..

Richard had a recent post comparing hockey to security work. He has a solid reference to a darn fine hockey player and how he changed the game by moving from being solely a defensemen to skating the ice and shooting the puck. I have always admired defensemen who can take solid shots - two of my favorites have played for the Av's: Blake and Bourque. There skill, as Bejtlich points out, is being well rounded, able to play as a forward and be back to help the goalie. He then asks what position you play on the security hockey team.

So it got me to thinking - what position do I play? Well I know I am not a goalie. You can never be a successful consultant and be a goalie. Getting and keeping contracts are based upon the individual being able to handle whatever situation is thrown at you, whether it is defensive and helping build a firewall, to being a forward and auditing the capabilities of the newest web application that is being deployed to being a bit of both and performing a PCI assessment.

So in the end I think I am a defensemen. I want to play as a forward, the rock stars - but I know my levels and that I can't skate that fast. So I will stay back at the blue line, let fly a slap shot every once in awhile that will rattle the goalie's teeth and be a good consultant. I will continue to learn as much as possible, question the forwards on what they are doing - asking Dan Kaminsky sometime to slow down and explain the DNS over DNS.

Thanks Richard - glad I stopped to get a better view of where I play on the team.