Unwritten – The History of the Shell

Welcome, if you’re new to the Cybersecurity Sphere – you may have seen and/or heard the term ‘Shell’ anywhere from current Job Searching to traditional Matriculate Studies. The powerful Shell is the prompt where you would enter commands, or syntax. In your classes or online labs, book material, what have you – you may have seen photos or had actual hands-on experience writing syntax (which simply means writing commands) into the Shell – or CLI.

I thought it important to write this article specifically because Shell/CLI Learning is falling by the wayside, whereas – it is actually More-Important-Than-Ever- to be well versed using the Shell. Why is this? Well, almost every Major Player on the Frontlines of Cybersecurity, vendors like Palo Alto, Cisco (Firepower), Fortigate, Checkpoint, etc. all of which were NGFWs before Layered Security started to become a forerunner for almost all Secure Infrastructures – have migrated and/or will migrate to a fully GUI End-User platform. Which means, everything will be point-and-click.

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with point-and-click, so to speak. However, my problem with a fully P&C environment is; when something breaks – how are you going to click your way around to fix it? This transition will leave millions of professionals without work, when (if) we migrate to a fully Graphical User Interface – where jobs will become depleted. You’ve heard the term ‘Everyone is migrating to the Cloud.’ This is True. But that doesn’t mean that it’s all good and great.

Consider my Penetration Testing work. I must be strong in the shell in order to move my way around the environment and find whatever open-doors that I can. Now, think for a minute. What if you had NO knowledge of the Shell – but someone hacked into your environment on-the-job. It’s too late, the enemy is in, and your only countermeasure is to reload the system, because you can’t bring a Knife to a Gun fight. You don’t have the same knowledge that the other person has that helped them get in in the first place, and you cannot retaliate with your knife. You need to know your way around not only the system, but the system AND the way the system is set-up.

Stay well versed in the Shell, My Friends, and Stay Strong.

See my Job Post Page for Open Positions in Cybersecurity that are Shell-Intensive. Break Free from the Legacy, don’t ever Believe that your job is irrelevant. My prediction is that within the next 10 years every digital environment will have migrated to the cloud – this means that those of us who still have knowledge of CLI/Shell will be the heroes who are capable, and qualified to solve real-world-problems, when they arise.The title of this article remains 'Unwritten' even at the  end of the text - because between the black/white of each article I am sending an underlying message. The CLI is the Written Word, Written Text - the User MUST possess to aptitude to move his or her way around. Whereas, Point-and-click = almost completely erases the humanness that we all possess and is the first step into a completely Digital existence. 

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Ashley Oliver is an experienced Cybersecurity Consultant, Engineer, Mentor and Teacher based in the Central New York area. Ashley has over 10 years of experience. Ashley is a SME in several areas of security including Network Security Engineering, Architecture, Policy, Standards, and Compliance. Ashley's rare and unique experience is based on her love for the Shell, and perfect design. Ashley has knowledge of NIST, and is very proficient in Layered Security, DLP, Encryption, IPSec, and more, and she is always more than willing to share and to teach.