Do coding skills help you with the general routine and daily security administration of computer systems and networks?
Yes. Regardless of the fact that ‘scripting’ which is (used to be) a crucial skill to manage computer systems and networks, coding skills is not only fundamental to understanding the details of computer security, but also fundamental to the security administration of computer systems and network.
Cyber security ecosystem is more than CIA and describing it on the paper. In order to understand the elements of computer security we need to be fully skilled with the fundamental of computer science which is truly software and hardware.
I am not telling you need to learn machine language and assembly because that is for someone dedicated to deal with lowest level of security like finding flaws and writing patches for operating systems and kernels, but one still need more than basic level of at least some scripting languages like PS (PowerShell), WSH (Windows Scripting Host), Bash, Python… to handle the security administration if not digging into details.
Some other coding skills helps your setup, configure, troubleshoot and generally operate smoother than other admins:
Java: knowing Java even if you wouldn’t want to write one single line of code is crucial because there are hundreds of thousands of utilities and backend systems coded purely with Java so it is so easy to understand them once you master Java.
JavaScript: you may find it funny how HTML with JavaScript can help you in security administration. Once you start digging into security aspects of many applications you will find HTML crucial and super helpful.
PHP: it is helpful if you are dealing with web apps in general. There are millions of web apps running with this powerful language.
SQL: any knowledge around any flavor of SQL is so helpful and if you deal with databases regularly then it is a must to know how to code SQL directly or via a host interface like PHP.
I personally put Python as a must only if you want to develop as well. In other words, knowing Python is very helpful only if you are going to specifically develop for a customized environment and integrate other systems and utilities.
What I can tell you generally is specialty is of course very important with any aspect of computer science that you are going to be the subject matter person for it, but whether we like it or not, it is critical to know about all fields of computer science to be able to manage a tech environment sufficiently.
For example, one can’t be an expert with networking if doesn’t have full knowledge of SSH so probably won’t be able to fully operate a network securely if is not capable of administration part. Coding skill is not a preference, it is critical to security administration.
