Technical versus procedural cyber security
We could try to put all expertise areas of cyber security into a single framework, if we want to build an overview of the field. However, that understanding of cyber security quickly gets too large to contain as a mental model.
A more abstract model will at the top distinguish between “technical” and “procedural” cyber security.
Technical cyber security is typically what people think of when we talk about “hackers”. Technical cyber security is work that has a direct effect on the world by interacting with technology. Expertise in this category includes, but is not limited to:
- Software engineers
- Technical system/network administrators
- Penetration testers/red teaming
- Malware developers
- Technical analysts
Procedural cyber security entails the process side of how security relates to business operations.
Governance, risk management and compliance in the context of cyber security encompasses this concept, and include expertise areas such as:
- Risk analysts
- Non-technical system/network administrators
- Auditors
- CISOs (Chief Information Security Officer)
While technical cyber security breeds specialists, procedural cyber security breeds generalists.
This distinction of technical and procedural cyber security is also known as “hard versus soft”—you can guess which is which :)