A Day in the Life of Oliver Fairbank, Head of Analysis at Orpheus

### Overview In this talk, Oliver Fairbank describes his role and responsibilities as Head of Analysis at Orpheus, a specialist cyber threat intelligence company. He outlines his day-to-day work managing an analyst team, his involvement in industry bodies such as CREST, his non-technical professional background transitioning from political risk into cyber threat intelligence, and practical advice for newcomers entering the sector.

### Key Topics - **Role at Orpheus**: Leading an analyst team that covers subscription products, bespoke consulting projects, threat assessments, and intelligence-led security testing frameworks (such as CBEST and related schemes). - **Industry Committees and Certification**: Serving on the CREST Threat Intelligence Professionals (CTIP) subgroup executive committee to expand cyber threat intelligence (CTI) capacity and quality in the UK, as well as serving on the assessors panel setting content and marking papers for CREST CTI exams (including CCTA, CTI-A, and practitioner-level assessments). - **The Intelligence Lifecycle**: Engaging with clients to define intelligence requirements, developing collection plans to gather data and information, processing findings into finished intelligence reports, blogs, white papers, and special research. - **Career Path and Skill Sets**: Transitioning from a conventional political and security risk analysis background into cybersecurity, emphasizing analytical and soft skills rather than deep technical origins. - **Managing Information Overload**: Handling the massive volume and daily churn of threat landscape reporting by focusing on strategic, less frequent analytical work. - **Entry into the CTI Sector**: Leveraging available training resources, CREST materials, and e-learning courses while demonstrating curiosity and focused subject-matter interest.

### Technical Details - **Intelligence-Led Security Testing**: Mentions involvement with frameworks like CBEST (transcribed phonetically in parts as 'defects Jebus beyond') that utilize intelligence to drive simulated attack assessments. - **Intelligence Production Process**: Details converting raw data and information into structured intelligence via collection plans tailored to specific client requirements. - **Exam Evaluation**: Highlights work on CREST certifications, participating in setting exam content and grading submission papers for certified threat intelligence tracks.

### Takeaways - Cyber threat intelligence relies heavily on strong analytical methodologies and soft skills, making it accessible to professionals from non-technical backgrounds such as political risk. - Given the overwhelming churn of daily cyber threat news, focusing on deeper, strategic research can provide clearer value than trying to digest all incoming feeds. - Prospective CTI practitioners should actively engage with publicly available e-learning and CREST materials, demonstrating clear focus and personal interest to stand out when entering the field.