Lessons from help desk part 1

 I love ethical hacking, Cybersecurity, and finding a tasty and juicy vulnerability. However, I think people underestimate the lessons from a very important job: help desk. Help desk is one of those almost "put you through the ringer" type of jobs. It can be soul-sucking, it can be filled with frustration, endless tickets, anxiety, and so on. I think one of the most important things about help desk because of this is to take some lessons in order to understand not only Cybersecurity, IT, and even society as a whole. Let's dig in.

The weakest link: the human brain

Help desk is basically this: ticket comes in, a user is having an issue that you may or may not know how to fix off the top of your head. You do your best to assist them as urgently and best as possible. This can go a myriad of ways, the user doesn't answer, the user is frustrated and just "wants you to fix it" but is not describing the issue so you have to figure it out, and so on. 

One of the things that I've learned as my time in help desk that applies to Cybersecurity is that humans are the weakest link, or can be. This isn't an insult or belittling of people in general, this is just an observation. This includes IT, ethical hackers, seasoned Cybersecurity experts, etc. No one is invincible against social engineering. 

Why is this? It's because humans get tired, they get frustrated, they cry, they get angry, they may not know something important, and so on. All of these things play an important role at your job. Let me give you an example, it's the Friday before Christmas (inspired by the fact that today actually *is* the Friday before Christmas) and you're at the front desk. It's 1:00pm and your mind is already thinking of the holiday. A random person you've never seen comes in for the day. Generally, you always make sure to have them sign in and get a badge. However, you're tired, you want to go home and there's no one currently at work who would make sure that you're doing it correctly anyway. He says "hello, your IT sent me to check out some wi-fi issues you've been having." You get a bit suspicious, but since your IT is out you can't just call them, you decide to let him on through. And the rest is history. 

This is not an actual thing that has happened in my life, but a very easy example of what can happen. Especially during the holidays. 

Now, this is not going to turn into "everything should be AI" so don't worry about that. But why is this important to understand? Because this directly applies to Cybersecurity and protecting your business, and important to you, as well. 

Training your users and yourself to be alert at all times (yes, even at 4:59PM on a Friday before a holiday weekend) and to be consistent in the policies that you establish to keep your firm secure is huge. 

The point isn't to fear monger or scare people into being alert, but to establish and make sure that people understand the importance of protecting the firm. Of course, not everyone cares or might care as you, which will be the topic of the next article about help desk. Sometimes, your voice is not heard. You're ignored, and you just have to accept that. 

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you gleaned something from this, I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a happy new year! :) 

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