Lessons learnt from COVID-19

I think this will be one of the major health disaster of the 21th century. It has shows that in our hyperconnected world, it would not be difficult to spread a virus.

No need of a some people (activist or terrorits) to spread it, as shown in the movie "12 Monkeys".

We just need a virus with a long incubation time to allow people with no symptoms to travel before being sick...

Anyway, let's get back to the topic of this post, the lessons learnt from this period.

1 - Appreciate simple things

Being confined at home gives you time to appreciate things you would not noticed in the "pre-COVID" lifestyle.

2 - Keep contacts with relatives, friends, colleagues.

Also, it was not possible to physically meet, you can message/call or do a visio to discuss. It is different, but it is better than being totally in lockdown.

3 - Do not keep in the same location, positive cases and negative cases

Unless you want the positive cases to contamine the negative ones. It is like having zombies in a building with non contaminated people ...if you watched World War Z, you have a lot of times this situation, like that one

Or for IT people, it is like leaving a compromised machine with a worm in the production network waiting all the machines get infected.

4 - Believe in a cure.
Eventually, scientists will find a cure.

Multiple vaccins are going to be released.

My thoughts about the CISSP exam

Last month, I took the CISSP exam and I got an unexpected result : I passed.

By "unexpected", I mean I was expecting to have 150 questions, and the exam ended by itself after I submitted the 100th questions.

My notes for those preparing this exam:

- take you time to answer to the questions
It does not worth the risk to rush out the exams and failed it.
Better to take the time to answer to each question carefully and get the positive outcome after 100 questions, than rushing out thinking it will take 150 questions, and get a negative outcome after 100 questions.
When the exam ended for me, it remained about 50min for the 50 questions...

- for technical profiles, focus on the theorical and processes points
You have the weight of each domain available on ISC2 website (it will change next year by the way). And although the textbook I used (official study guide from Sybex) discussed about practical examples, most of the questions were theorical (just question checking the understanding of a notion definition) or processes oriented.
I advise you to write down while you're studying the different processes seen, the inputs/actors/expected outcomes/objectives of each process, it position related to other processes... Something I did not do, but I think it is more interesting than some cheatsheets I found online which contains just keywords and brief explanations.

- schedule the time to set a deadline
I had to take 2 exams during the past 3 months, and for technical reason I had to reschedule one. This change the study planning for the CISSP. When you study for the exam, you keep the knownledge in your short term memory, it means you need to take the exam when you still have this knowledge. It does not mean you don't have the knownledge in your long term memory, just that the amount of data will not be the same (on PAN-OS, it is like detailled traffic logs and summary traffic logs, the short term memory is like the traffic logs, detailled but covering short amount of time compared to the summary traffic logs, aggregations of traffic logs (information lost) covering larger period of time).

- don't waste your time on "silly" points
On one of my questions, I felt there was a mispelled word on a word which affect the asnwer of the question. At the end, the answer I selected was not related to this mispelled word, as another word in the question was the main point of the question.
Just note the mispelled word with the question ID and give it at the end of the exam to the proctor.

Resources used:

- the Sybex - CISSP official study guide, it is great for people who cannot sleep at night.

- the videos on LinkedIn learning from Chapple (one of the author of the official study guide), I advise to watch the video after finishing the book to refresh the memory. (you can pass the first 5min of each video where Chapple is selling the book).

- CISSP cheatsheets, see my comments above.

For me, I an currently in the endorsement process, so certification in process.

And good luck for those taking the exam.

3E au Vietnam

Ca faisait un petit moment deja que je voulais ecrire un billet afin de faire un retour d'experience de la methode '3E' utilisee lorsque j'etais au Vietnam.

Cette methode repose sur 3 axes :
- Education
- Exposure
- Experience

1- Education
Il faut s'assurer que les membres de l'equipe savent un minimum de procedures propres a nos differents clients.
Pour cela, un wiki a ete mis en place contenant les differents procedures propres a chaque client. Des article de type "How to" ont ete ecris.
A la fin a cause du nombre croissant de procedure a connaitre, j'ai fait un petit quizz dont le but etait de tester le savoir-faire.

2- Exposure
Un mentoring etait en place de telle sorte qu'un nouvel arrivant etait avec une personne avec une certaine experience sur le client.
Le but est de permettre a chacun : de transmettre et de poser directement des questions hors de cadre formel.

3- Experience
Lire des procedures, discuter avec son mentor c'est bien, mais on apprends plus vite en appliquant ce que l'on apprends. Des que la personne est en confiance, et qu'elle se sent prete a aller au feu, elle pouvait commencer a prendre des tickets.

A ces 3 points, j'ajoute Enpowerment.
Chaque membre de l'equipe est responsabilise : elle peut, et elle est encourage a ecrire du contenu dans le wiki. Toute l'equipe est consulte afin de savoir s'il y a des points en particulier a remonter au client.

New year, new job, new country

2017 is well started already, and as I stated it in the title, this year start with a lot of new things.

After spending 2 years in Vietnam, sharing my tricks and my knowledge to my colleagues, solving problems and hacking the different internal tools, it was time for me to take a new challenge.

So I landed to Singapore, doing what I know and what I don't know yet for an international organization. 

I don't know if I'll succeed but one thing is sure : I am doing my best.

And later this year, actually it is supposed to start in March (really soon), I will follow the e-learning program about the CCNA CyberOps curriculum as a Cisco Global Scholarship recipient.

Anyway, it is late here so ...

Stay tuned.

Premier bilan après 6 mois au Vietnam

Pour ceux qui n'auraient pas lu un de mes précédents billets, je suis parti vivre au Vietnam.

Bon voilà, 6 mois à HoChiMinhVille, il est temps de faire un premier bilan.

Tout d'abord lors de mon arrivée, l'entreprise pour laquelle je travaille à lancer la procédure afin que j'obtienne mon permis de travail : entre la visite médicale, la certification des diplômes, l'enregistrement à la police, les photos au format (3*4cm, non ce ne sont pas des photos au format classique) et les étapes que l'assistante administrative a faite pour moi pour à la fin obtenir le précieux sésame, il s'est écoulé un peu plus de 2 mois (apparemment c'est le record de rapidité de la compagnie).

Sinon, concernant la vie à Saigon : c'est complètement différent de la France. C'est le plein emploi ici, et on sent bien l'insouciance des Vietnamiens au travail, lorsque certains en France ont du mal à trouver un poste ou faire un business, ici on peut monter n'importe quelle business (j'avais vu une annonce sur Facebook d'une personne qui vendait une charette car son associée française rentrait en France ... oui, elles avaient monté une crêperie ambulante).

Au niveau de la météo, c'est simple pas moins de 20° en journée :)

Par contre niveau polution, c'est pas le top :/

Concernant mon poste, je suis chargé de superviser certaines équipes de "support" (service desk et support supervision), c'est particulier de travailler avec des Vietnamiens. En France, on a un savoir-vivre qui fait qu'on arrive à l'heure ou que l'on prévienne ses collègues / ses supérieurs si on doit s'absenter, et bien on peut oublier ça ici.

J'ai mis en place un wiki sur lequel tout le monde essaie de mettre du contenu (procédures pour chaque client, description des outils ...), automatiser des tâches journalières (reporting mail journalier), et mettre en place divers outils (monitoring de notre infrastructure, développement d'outils internes).

Voilà déjà 6 mois, le temps passe vite, allez je retourne prendre un caphe sua da :)

Bonne année, bonne santé

Meilleurs vœux de réussite, de bonheur pour cette année 2012.

First packets to the blog

Hi folks,

This is my first post on the blog (wish it won't be the last one).

I'll share with you about IT (information technology), computers and networking.

Cheers