Enhancing Cybersecurity Skills: Srimanth Kommuguri on How the C|SA Broadened His Understanding of Attackers' Tactics

Srimanth Kommuguri
Title: Security Engineer
Company:
Country: India
In this interview, Srimanth Kommuguri, a security engineer and SOC enthusiast, shares how the EC-Council’s Certified SOC Analyst (C|SA) certification played a crucial role in building his cybersecurity career. Srimanth is a passionate cybersecurity professional with a strong interest in blue teaming and detection engineering. After completing his college education in 2022, he began his career as a pen tester before earning the EC-Council Certified SOC Analyst (C|SA) certification, which helped him land his first job in cybersecurity. He started as a VAPT professional and gained experience in pen testing. In pursuit of more knowledge, he earned the C|SA, which allowed him to grow and eventually become a security engineer in his organization. He points out that he used the knowledge he gained from the C|SA to develop practical skills in identifying attacks, detecting vulnerabilities, and reporting them. He states that the practical skills and knowledge gained from the C|SA certification have been instrumental in his career development, particularly in security operations centers (SOCs). Srimanth is currently pursuing the Certified Threat Intelligence Analyst (C|TIA) certification, with plans to expand his expertise further in incident management and threat intelligence.

Is C|SA Worth it?

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I’m actively applying concepts from the C|SA training in my daily tasks. The content is both highly relevant and engaging, particularly when it comes to incident investigations and response analysis. Our entire team utilizes these resources, and they’ve proven to be incredibly helpful.

What motivated you to pursue the EC-Council Certified SOC Analyst (C|SA) certification?

Basically, I was interested in blue teaming. While researching certifications in the industry that focused on blue team fundamentals and career opportunities, I came across EC-Council’s C|SA.

How did the C|SA certification contribute to your career goals?

I found the C|SA curriculum really good.

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What I learned is practically applicable to security operations across all industries, which has been very helpful for me. It helped me earn the certification and land my first job in cybersecurity.

How has the C|SA course influenced your career or professional development in SOC?

The C|SA certification has been crucial in developing my skills in blue teaming.

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It helped me understand the fundamentals of various areas like fine-tuning, detection, engineering, etc. Hence, I recommend others to pursue the C|SA certification to advance in cybersecurity.”

What aspect of the C|SA program did you find most interesting or valuable, and how have they contributed to your professional development?

In the C|SA curriculum, I enjoyed the practical application aspects, such as detecting web application attacks and identifying malware attacks targeting endpoint security.

Can you share a specific incident where the C|SA knowledge helped in managing a cybersecurity incident?

Recently, our organization faced an incident where a threat actor compromised one of our servers.

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I used the knowledge I gained from the C|SA to quickly identify the attack, find the loopholes, and report them to our higher authorities.

After discovering the vulnerability, we fixed it and analyzed the attack pattern used by the threat actor, which proved useful. The skills I acquired from the C|SA were very helpful for my career and my job.

How helpful is the C|SA training for career development in incident handling, SOC, and cybersecurity in general?

The C|SA curriculum covers various topics, such as endpoint security, web application vulnerabilities and attacks, and security operations center (SOC) activities, including handling alerts and managing incidents.

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I recommend that people with one or two years of experience in the blue team pursue the C|SA certification to advance their careers in incident management or detection engineering.

What specific challenges or gaps in your SOC knowledge or skills did the C|SA course help you overcome?

My first certification was the C|SA. I started as a VAPT professional and learned pen testing. I pursued more knowledge, which led me to become a security engineer in my organization. This transition helped me move from a security analyst to a security engineer, focusing on reducing false positives and improving threat detection while working with the detection engineering and endpoint security teams.

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Achieving the C|SA certification gave me a promotion and valuable knowledge in my field.

Tell us about a journey as a cybersecurity professional.

In 2022, I completed my college education, where I learned pen testing skills. After that, I worked as a pen tester for a small organization. Later, I decided to deepen my knowledge in cybersecurity. Hence, I earned a C|SA certification, which helped me land my first job. Afterward, I continued obtaining certifications and recently enrolled in EC-Council’s Certified Threat Intelligence Analyst (C|TIA) program.

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Thanks to these certifications from EC-Council, I have received significant promotions in my organization.

Have you completed any other EC-Council courses? If yes, how did the skills from those courses, combined with the C|SA, contribute to your professional development?

Apart from the C|SA, I am currently working on the Certified Threat Intelligence Analyst (C|TIA). I observed that the C|SA focuses on native SOC operations, while the C|TIA is entirely about intelligence operations, threat hunting, finding undetectable threats, APTs, and the current threat landscape.

I have good career prospects transitioning from native SOC to C|TIA and incident management. The C|SA certification is my foundation, followed by the C|TIA, and I am planning to pursue the EC-Council Certified Incident Handler (E|CIH). By combining knowledge from these certifications, I see a strong career path for the next three years. It would be a privilege to have these certifications in my career.

Would you recommend the C|SA course for incident handling and cybersecurity? If so, what would be your key reasons for the recommendation?

The key reason I recommend the C|SA is its focus on detection engineering. It teaches the appropriate methods to detect specific attacks, which is a crucial aspect of C|SA certification.

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I’ve encouraged my friends and colleagues to pursue the C|SA, and one of my colleagues has already earned the certification.
What interests me most about the C|SA is the detection engineering part, specifically how attacks are identified using written rules. This is the main reason I encourage others to pursue the C|SA certification.

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