What it's like...

Last update 12/23/2010.

What's it like to be a security professional?

As in any profession, there's both good and bad. Security can be, by turns, tedious and exhilarating.

In the corporate world, tedium might gain the upper hand. Changing firewall rules, reading logs, watching CCTV screens, writing budget proposals—these are the experiences that might make up the bulk of your day. All important stuff, don't get us wrong. Very important.

But of course it's the less-frequent incidents, the stranger projects, the more eccentric colleagues, the truly unexpected moments, that wind up being your stories at dinner parties.

So what are those moments really like?

We asked. Here are the answers, presented in a series online throughout December on CSOonline.com.

What it's like...

...to steal someone's identity

...to dodge IEDs in Afghanistan

...to be a woman in a mostly male industry

...to suffer through a DDoS attack

...to be grilled by the Secret Service

...to respond to a bomb threat

...to have your security conference talk rejected

...more to come.

Check out the predictions made by security experts in the December 2008 issue What Happens Next. With the benefit of hindsight, how did these experts do?