Network Security Operations Engineer
A Network Security Operations Engineer works along with a team of security administrators to ensure that the infrastructure of an organization is secure. The individual will, therefore, have to work with diverse IT security technologies and products. These engineers will have to be active team players and must have excellent spoken and written communication skills. They will implement and support the network security solutions.
The job responsibility of the candidate entails fixing network hardware and software issues.
Job Description
Network Security Operations Engineers come up with new approaches to fix existing production security problems. They undertake risk analyses, vulnerability testing, and security reviews and partner with their teammates on solutions for authorization, authentication, and encryption.
Moreover, they assume the responsibility of assessing new technologies and processes that could improve security capabilities. Engineers perform testing of security solutions by making use of industry standard analysis benchmarks and must implement corporate security policies and advise organizations on new security technologies.
Engineers must have in-depth knowledge of LAN and WAN and must know how to devise, implement, and configure firewalls. They monitor anti-spam technologies and have knowledge of email, DDoS, intrusion detection systems, vulnerability scanning, and network access control. They deploy and administer network security systems and provide security policy administration for the range of products their team supports.
Engineers also train their team members, take care of network, systems, and application troubleshooting and must be able to oversee the information security policies, guidelines, procedures, processes, and SOPs. They provide Level 2 and Level 3 security support, assess security violation reports, and investigate possible security threats.
Besides the tasks mentioned above, engineers should have reasonable experience administrating open-source operating systems. They should fix computer systems, networking, and applications.
Engineers should assess networking requirements, design and develop network topologies, carry out upgrades and modifications to the network, and implement network security and mechanisms for protecting information.
They should test network solutions so that relevant products and services can be implemented at clients’ networks.
Engineers should assist in installing and integrating all network components. They should support, maintain, and manage networks and servers. It is the responsibility of engineers to create documentation related to network systems.
Engineers should train their teammates on the basics of computer security. They should be conversant with intermediate to advanced network administrator concepts. They, therefore, should know IP fundamentals, firewall maintenance, switch and router management, IP addressing and subnetting, etc.
Engineers should know about the best IT security practices related to network management. They should recognize scope for improvement in the existing networking architecture so that they can propose solutions for the best practices to the management of their organization.
Specialists need to comprehend and elucidate system security requirements, both internally and externally and plan how to go about deploying and supporting them.
Engineers should monitor computer systems for security issues and threats, identify emerging threats and diagnose them to prevent security incidents, and manage and maintain security servers.
They should administer and maintain security log systems, antivirus servers, and ensure prompt deployment of logging standards on new systems or upgrade existing applications.
Specialists should partner with different teams within an organization to document disaster recovery instances. They should be drivers of security awareness within their organizations.
In addition, engineers should support and maintain existing firewall infrastructure, be constantly on the lookout for opportunities to automate, cut down expenditure, and improve quality of service.
Engineers should be abreast of technology trends so that they can help identify breaches during the implementation of solutions. They should take the onus of researching new technologies whenever they get time.
Prospects
Employment opportunities for the network and computer systems administrators are predicted to increase six percent during the period 2016-2026. Demand for them will continue to swell as businesses invest in emerging technology and mobile networks, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Educational Qualifications and Other Requirements
Engineers should have a bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering or any related discipline along with scripting skills in Python, Shell, and Perl. They should have knowledge of IP routing, DNS, SSL, VPN, HTTP, etc. Engineers have to create, maintain, and update documentation for operations and also need to provide training material on new processes to the entry-level professionals of their team.
They should have expertise in IPv4, IPv6 and routing protocols and experience of working with automation tools, such as Phantom or Ansible. They should be well-versed with popular operating systems (Windows, macOS or Linux), Database and Middleware platforms.
Knowledge of SMTP, DNS, TLS, and related standards, email security standards, and comprehension of Network Access Control techniques and application detection rules, among others, will give them an edge.
Salary
The average salary of a Network Security Operations Engineer is $94,651 per year in the United States, according to payscale. If they work on a freelance basis, they will earn about $31.25 per hour.
How Field Engineer Helps
If you want to be hired as a freelance Network Security Operations Engineer in the Telecom Freelance Marketplace, visit Fieldengineer.com. It helps you connect with employers on the lookout for candidates with the appropriate skill sets. This platform has more than 40,000 engineers belonging to various fields from over 180 countries, making it easy for companies to hire telecom freelancers.
