Waiting for an emergency call
Nick Dongas, incident response project manager for APJ, Symantec Australia
What is your role?
I am part of the Symantec response group tasked with assisting customers when they suffer a suspected cyber breach or know they have malware in their organisation. I am one of the first people they talk to. I organise all the logistics. It might be a one-off isolated incident or a wide-scale data breach.
Customers are generally in a state of panic or confusion so we will be there to help assist them to investigate that breach and provide advice on the best way to contain it and handle the situation. We look after countries all over Asia so we are often dealing with translators, different time zones and all that as well.
What is a typical day?
Because we are reactive, often an average day is handling administrative duties until the phone rings or an email comes through and from then on it’s all hands on deck. Suddenly everything stops and we have to start planning with limited information to get a team on the ground, work out the best resources to be deployed, and what we are dealing with in terms of the adversary on the other side. We sit around and wait until everything happens and then there is a flurry of activity.
How did you get into the cyber security field?
I have been in cyber security for eight or nine years. I started my career after leaving school. I went looking for conventional office jobs and developed an interest in IT. I was lucky the people I was working with allowed me to develop networks and they were able to mentor me. I decided that one of the best ways to get involved was to start getting certified. Some people mentioned they had gone through the SEEK Learning curriculum so I started that certification process.