RE: OS to know.

["Beauford, Jason" <jbeauford () EightInOnePet com>]

"If your knowledge is varied, you'll have an edge in the job market,
especially if you happen to know an OS that isn't popular, but happens
to be used at the site you're applying for."

Hit up EBAY for an old VAX or ALPHA Server and get your hands on
OpenVMS.  OpenVMS admins can command some big bucks if they know what
they're doing.  Not too many of them nowadays (relatively that is).
BTW.. OpenVMS is argueably the most stable and secure (server) OS out
there today.  You'll find VMS Servers which haven't been rebooted in
years and also only a small handful of "vulnerabilities" (if that's what
you want to call them as they all need console access) have ever been
found.

Go DEC..err..Compaq..err..HP.

JMB


        |  -----Original Message-----
        |  From: kmuskrat () gmail com [mailto:kmuskrat () gmail com] 
        |  Sent: Tuesday, November 01, 2005 12:35 AM
        |  To: security-basics () securityfocus com
        |  Subject: Re: OS to know.
        |  
        |  You'll definitely want to learn more about network 
        |  security as a whole.  You can know a lot about how 
        |  to use an operating system which is popular and have 
        |  no clue about security. 
        |  
        |  Further, most network/computer security concepts are 
        |  the same among operating systems.  The concepts of 
        |  effective firewalling, intrusion detection, good 
        |  practices, pen-testing, and so on will help you out 
        |  a lot.  Once you understand the actual concepts, 
        |  it's easy to implement such things in a number of 
        |  different environments.
        |  
        |  Like a few others said, learn all of them...or as 
        |  many as you can.  If you simply focus on the ones 
        |  that are popular, odds are you'll be competing for 
        |  the job with a bunch of people who focused on the 
        |  same thing.  If your knowledge is varied, you'll 
        |  have an edge in the job market, especially if you 
        |  happen to know an OS that isn't popular, but happens 
        |  to be used at the site you're applying for.
        |