Security Engineering & Operations Topics
Operational security practices, secure systems implementation, threat modeling, penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, and security operations at production scale. Covers network security, endpoint security, secure architecture implementation, incident response mechanics, and security automation. Distinct from Security & Compliance (which addresses governance, compliance frameworks, and policy) and from Security Research & Innovation (which addresses novel techniques and research contributions).
Access Control and Privilege Management
Demonstrate knowledge and practical approaches to designing, implementing, and operating access control for data platforms. Cover models such as role based access control and attribute based access control and explain when each model is appropriate. Describe technical controls including database roles and grants, policies for row level security and column level masking, use of views or stored procedures to enforce access constraints, and integration with identity providers and directory services for centralized authentication and authorization. Address operational practices such as the principle of least privilege, separation of duties, periodic access reviews, temporary access workflows, privileged access management, audit logging, monitoring of privilege use, and remediation of excessive privileges. Explain how access control choices interact with compliance requirements, data classification, and encryption and key management.
Data Protection and Encryption
Design and practical application of controls to protect sensitive data with a primary focus on encryption and key management across cloud and on premises environments. Core areas include encryption at rest, encryption in transit, and encryption in use; selection and trade offs between symmetric and asymmetric algorithms and relevant protocols; standards based and application level techniques such as field level encryption and end to end encryption; client side and server side encryption patterns; envelope encryption and hardware backed key storage. Includes design and operational practices for key lifecycle management including secure key generation, secure storage, rotation, revocation, backup and recovery, high availability and disaster recovery, multi region and multi account deployments, and integration with hardware security modules and managed key vaults. Covers complementary techniques such as tokenization, format preserving encryption, and data masking, as well as identification and classification of sensitive data and sensitive data flows and consistent enforcement across databases, object storage, caches and message queues. Also includes transport layer protection and secrets management, performance and scalability trade offs of encryption and key rotation, audit logging and monitoring of encryption controls, incident response and breach handling for encrypted data, access controls and separation of duties around key access, and regulatory and compliance considerations including data residency and standards relevant to payment and personal data protection.
Cryptographic Key Management and Infrastructure
Designing, implementing, and operating systems that manage cryptographic keys and associated cryptographic infrastructure across the full lifecycle of keys and certificates. This includes secure key generation using validated entropy sources and randomness validation, key hierarchies and key derivation strategies, master key protection, algorithm selection and algorithm agility planning, and key migration strategies. It covers secure storage options and protections such as hardware security modules, cloud key management services and key vaults, encrypted and sealed storage patterns, and practical deployment considerations for both on premise and cloud environments. Access control and authorization patterns such as role based access control, separation of duties, and least privilege enforcement are essential, along with automated provisioning, rotation, retirement, and deprovisioning workflows. Operational topics include secure key distribution to services and devices, secure archival and destruction procedures, key escrow and recovery mechanisms, backup and disaster recovery for key material, incident response and handling of compromised keys, and audit logging and monitoring of key operations. Public key infrastructure and certificate lifecycle management are included, covering trust models, certificate issuance and renewal, revocation mechanisms and online status checking, and integration with identity and access management systems. Candidates should also address testing and validation approaches, cryptographic module attestation and tamper resistance, threat modeling and key compromise drills, standards and compliance considerations including guidance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and other frameworks, scaling and performance trade offs for enterprise and internet scale deployments, and the balance between operational convenience, availability, and cryptographic assurance.
Database Security and Access Control
Comprehensive knowledge of techniques and controls for securing databases, with an emphasis on authentication, authorization, and the principle of least privilege. Candidates should be able to design and implement role based access control models and permission schemes that operate at database, schema, table, column, and row levels, including role hierarchies, inheritance, and separation of duties. Expect practical skills in user lifecycle management such as creating and disabling accounts, removing default users, enforcing password policies, and integrating with identity providers and multi factor authentication. Secure credential handling should cover secret storage, rotation strategies, ephemeral credentials, and integration with key management or secret management services. Encryption topics include encryption at rest, encryption in transit using transport layer security, column level and field level encryption, transparent data encryption, and key lifecycle management. Data protection and privacy controls include data masking, anonymization, tokenization, and selective redaction. Auditing and monitoring capabilities should cover audit logging, change tracking, privileged access monitoring, alerting, and forensic readiness. Candidates should also be able to reason about design trade offs when minimizing privileges while preserving application functionality, and understand operational practices for hardening, patching, compliance, and incident response related to database access controls.
Patch Management and Compliance
Comprehensive governance and operational practices for planning, testing, deploying, verifying, and reporting on patches and software updates across systems and applications. Candidates should be prepared to discuss patch program policies, vulnerability and risk assessment, and prioritization of updates by severity and business impact, as well as asset inventory and dependency management. Coverage includes testing and staging practices such as nonproduction environments, canary and phased rollouts, rollback and remediation planning, emergency or out of band patching for critical vulnerabilities, scheduling and maintenance window planning, and reboot planning. It addresses integration with vulnerability management and configuration management, automation and orchestration using patch management and configuration management platforms, and examples of Windows focused tooling such as Windows Update for Business, Windows Server Update Services, System Center Configuration Manager, and Microsoft Intune alongside cross platform orchestration approaches. Also includes change control and coordination with application owners and operations teams, verification of patch success and integrity checks, audit logging and event monitoring, compliance reporting and documentation for regulatory frameworks, implementation of security configuration baselines and system hardening, mitigation strategies when patches are not available, and metrics and key performance indicators to measure patch program effectiveness. Emphasis is on balancing security urgency with operational stability while maintaining auditability and regulatory compliance.
Security Incident Response and Operations
Covers the practices, processes, and tooling for responding to security incidents and operating a security capability. Topics include the security incident lifecycle of preparation, detection, analysis, containment, eradication, recovery, and post incident review; development and execution of playbooks and runbooks tailored to threat types; severity classification and decision criteria for escalation; evidence preservation and forensic analysis and chain of custody; crisis communication to stakeholders and regulators; notification and regulatory compliance considerations; and coordination with legal, privacy, communications, and executive leadership. Also includes operational aspects of building and staffing a security operations center, on call schedules and escalation, ticketing and case management, leadership and coordination during major incidents, running blameless post incident reviews to identify systemic improvements, and integration of security incident learnings into engineering and operations.
Secrets and Identity Access Management
Secrets and Identity Access Management covers secure handling of credentials and the management of user and service access. Topics include secret storage and rotation best practices, secret injection into applications and automation pipelines, avoiding hardcoded credentials, use of secret management services and vaults, key management basics, role based access control and identity and access management principles, auditing of access and secrets usage, least privilege design, credential rotation policies, and integrating secrets and identity controls into deployment and infrastructure pipelines.
Data Governance and Security Implementation
Designing and applying technical and operational controls to protect data across storage, processing, and integration points. Topics include data classification and labeling to identify sensitive data, database and application level access controls such as role based access control and attribute based access control, encryption at rest and in transit, key management, tokenization and masking, secure handling of credentials and API keys, audit logging and immutable trails, retention and secure deletion policies, monitoring and alerting, and integration of these controls with privacy requirements and incident response processes. Candidates should be able to discuss concrete implementation patterns, trade offs, tooling choices, and testing and validation approaches.
Cryptography and Data Protection
Focuses on cryptographic controls and operational practices used to protect data at rest and in transit and the practical trade offs of their deployment. Topics include symmetric and asymmetric encryption concepts; common algorithms and their properties; encryption in transit and at rest; transport layer security and certificate management; key management and lifecycle including generation, storage, rotation, and revocation; digital signatures and integrity checks; threat models and limitations of cryptography; performance and scalability considerations; and how cryptographic controls integrate with access control, logging, and incident response to meet data protection goals.