Initiate Program: Discovery Protocol

You are beginning a three-phase assessment designed to map your core drivers, cognitive strengths, and technical inclination to a specialized domain within the cyber realm.

Phase A: Lifestyle & Motivation

Explore preferences regarding work-life balance, compensation goals, and work environment that define a fulfilling career.

Phase B: Soft Skills Assessment

Evaluate crucial non-technical abilities like critical thinking, communication, adaptability, and ethical judgment essential for cybersecurity success.

Phase C: Technical Pathways

Gauge your interest and aptitude across key technical domains, including Offensive, Defensive, Infrastructure, GRC, and Specialized operations.

Phase A: Lifestyle & Motivation

Rate the importance of these factors (1 - 5).

Phase B: Soft Skills Assessment

Indicate your agreement (1 - 5).

Phase C: Technical Pathways

Choose the option that best reflects your interest or approach.

1. Your primary interest in cybersecurity is:

Preventing attacks and protecting systems. Finding vulnerabilities and ethical hacking. Building and securing network/system infrastructure. Ensuring compliance with regulations and managing risk. Researching new threats or developing security tools.

2. When approaching a security problem, you prefer to:

Implement proactive defenses and monitor for threats. Actively try to break systems to understand weaknesses. Design and configure secure system architectures. Analyze policies, conduct audits, and assess risks. Deep-dive into forensics or reverse-engineer malware.

3. Your ideal workday involves:

Monitoring security alerts, incident response, and patching. Conducting penetration tests, red teaming, or vulnerability assessments. Managing firewalls, configuring cloud security, or deploying secure systems. Policy development, risk assessments, and compliance reporting. Developing custom security tools or performing advanced threat hunting.

4. Your attitude towards programming and scripting is:

I can read and understand scripts, and modify them as needed. I enjoy writing scripts and developing tools for exploitation or automation. I use scripting for automation in infrastructure management. I understand its concepts but rarely need to write code. I'm passionate about programming complex security solutions.

5. When you hear about a major data breach, your first thought is:

How could that have been prevented? What defenses failed? How did they get in? What techniques did they use? Was their network architecture weak? What misconfigurations led to this? Were they compliant? What were the legal and reputational impacts? I want to analyze the malware/attack chain to understand its intricacies.

6. Your preferred way to learn about new cyber threats is:

Reading threat intelligence reports and applying defensive measures. Participating in Capture The Flag (CTF) events and hands-on labs. Experimenting with secure system configurations in a lab environment. Studying industry standards, regulations, and best practices. Diving deep into exploit development or reverse engineering malware samples.

7. In a security team, you'd most likely want to be the one who:

Monitors for intrusions and responds to incidents. Proactively tests the security of applications and networks. Ensures all systems are securely configured and maintained. Advises on security policies and ensures legal/regulatory adherence. Conducts advanced research or develops unique security solutions.

8. Your approach to complex technical documentation is:

I read it to understand how to protect systems and apply security best practices. I skim for vulnerabilities and potential exploit vectors. I study it to design and implement robust and secure architectures. I review it to ensure compliance with standards and internal policies. I analyze it deeply to understand underlying mechanisms and potential weaknesses for research.

9. Which of these tools would you prefer to use daily?

SIEM (Security Information and Event Management) system. Metasploit, Burp Suite, or Nmap. Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tools or network configuration tools. GRC platforms, audit tools, or policy management systems. Debuggers, disassemblers, or specialized threat intelligence platforms.

10. Your instinct when encountering a new technology is to:

Understand its security features and potential attack surface. Immediately try to find ways to break or bypass its security. Learn how to properly configure and integrate it securely into existing systems. Assess its compliance implications and risk profile. Reverse engineer it or research advanced vulnerabilities.

11. How comfortable are you with public speaking or presenting findings?

Comfortable presenting findings to internal teams. I prefer showing rather than telling; demonstrating exploits is more my style. I can clearly explain technical infrastructure decisions to stakeholders. Very comfortable, especially when explaining risks and compliance requirements to management. I enjoy presenting complex research at conferences or to expert groups.

12. In an incident handling scenario, you prefer to:

Respond, contain, eradicate, and recover affected systems. Analyze the attack vector and develop countermeasures or exploit chains. Securely reconfigure and harden the infrastructure to prevent recurrence. Document the incident, assess impact, and ensure regulatory reporting. Perform deep forensic analysis to trace the attacker's every move.

13. Your approach to threat intelligence is to:

Consume and operationalize it to improve existing defenses. Use it to identify new attack techniques and hone offensive skills. Integrate it into security tools and infrastructure configurations. Understand the risk landscape and inform strategic security decisions. Contribute to it by conducting novel research on emerging threats.

14. Which research topic interests you most?

Next-gen firewalls and intrusion prevention systems. Zero-day exploits and advanced persistent threats. Cloud security architecture and secure DevOps practices. Data privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA) and audit frameworks. Cryptography, quantum security, or artificial intelligence in security.

15. You prefer working with which type of data?

Log files, network traffic, and real-time security events. Packet captures, memory dumps, and decompiled code. Configuration files, network topologies, and cloud resource policies. Policy documents, risk registers, and audit reports. Malware samples, exploit code, and cryptographic algorithms.

Raices Cyber
Career Pathway Assessment

Initiate Program: Discovery Protocol

Phase A: Lifestyle & Motivation

Phase B: Soft Skills Assessment

Phase C: Technical Pathways

Phase A: Lifestyle & Motivation

Operational Tempo & Environment

Incentives & Career Trajectory

Daily Operations & Autonomy

Training & Knowledge Acquisition

Phase B: Soft Skills Assessment

Intel Sharing & Team Ops

Threat Analysis & Logic

Resilience & Ethical Framework

Phase C: Technical Pathways

Mission Complete: Your Cyber Pathway!

Strongest Cognitive Attribute

Dominant Operational Driver

Suggested Roles (Mission Set)