Professional Certifications & Continuous Training
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Training & Security Leadership
Tech Tools Are Powerful ‘Easy Buttons’ But You Still Need to Know the Fundamentals
When I first started using a scientific calculator, I thought it was MAGIC – so much easier! I quickly realized how dangerous it was to treat it like an “easy button.” If I punched in the wrong formula or misplaced a decimal, the calculator would give me an answer. But that one tiny little typo could produce wildly inaccurate results.
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I had to step back and recognize that I may not know the answer, but the answer on the calculator was wrong. Without some foundation in math reasoning, I was sunk.
Cybersecurity works in much the same way. Today’s analysts have access to powerful tools that automate detection, generate alerts and even suggest responses. The real skill is not just reading what the tool provides. It’s knowing when something is wrong, spotting the one log entry, process, or packet that does not fit, and questioning whether the system’s output is reliable. In other words: Can you spot the not?
As they progress in their careers, SOC analysts are expected to move beyond clicking through alerts and develop more depth in the field: understanding scripting, correlating telemetry across multiple sources, and recognizing adversary tactics, techniques and procedures. Professionals who do this well build a kind of trained intuition. They learn how to filter noise, avoid chasing false positives and focus on the anomalies that really matter.
As someone who has written about this before, I find myself returning to the cautionary tale of the easy button. Maybe it is the educator in me, but I emphasize this to anyone entering the field: If you lean too heavily on shortcuts, dashboard or prepackaged answers, you will miss the deeper reasoning that makes you effective. For cyber professionals, the “easy button” may feel efficient, but it could be your downfall if you don’t push yourself to truly learn the in’s and out’s of cyber defense.
Why Depth Matters in Cybersecurity
False positives are part of every SOC analyst’s daily reality. It is not enough to dismiss them, and it’s not enough to chase each one in isolation. Depth helps you see patterns across alerts, recognize when a script is misbehaving in a subtle way, or synthesize information from multiple sources into a bigger picture. Without that deeper understanding, professionals risk wasting time, missing adversaries or responding in ways that do not solve an underlying problem.
Depth also builds what feels like intuition, the kind that lets an analyst glance at a system and know that something is out of place. That ability is, in fact, not intuition at all. Nor is it innate. It is a skill built through training, repetition and critical reasoning. Just as a mathematician learns to spot when an answer doesn’t make sense, a cybersecurity professional must learn to identify when the system’s response doesn’t add up.
Training for Real Understanding
Developing this kind of professional instinct requires more than certification checkboxes. It comes from training programs that force learners to reason through problems, not just follow steps. Simulations that overwhelm you with noise, exercises that require correlation across multiple data sets, and labs that reward persistence over speed are the environments that produce professionals who can truly “spot the not.”
For those building training programs, this message is equally important. Easy wins may look appealing in the short term, but if learners are not challenged to think deeply, they will not be prepared for the realities of the SOC or the field. This profession requires a continuous learning ecosystem that evolves with threats and pushes participants to sharpen their reasoning.
A Call to Learners and Leaders
For professionals entering cybersecurity, this is your challenge: Avoid the temptation to lean on easy buttons. Use the tools, but don’t outsource your reasoning to them. Push yourself to learn deeply enough that you can recognize when something doesn’t look right, even if the system insists otherwise.
For those designing curricula or managing teams, this is a call to build training that demands thought, judgment and persistence. The professionals who thrive in this field are the ones who have put in the time to understand, to practice and to calibrate their instincts.
Cybersecurity does not reward shortcuts for long. It rewards those who build depth, develop intuition and learn to spot the not.