Blue teaming is the bread and butter of the security industry. While offensive security looks cooler, and has more pop culture around it, defensive operations are what really keeps us all safe. Defending is a multi-faceted process that combines hardening your network against attacks, as well as improving your visibility and trying to detect attacks when they hit you or happen to slip by your other defenses.
The odds are stacked against defenders. Remember, Defenders have to successfully protects against thousands of different types of attacks. Attackers, only need one that you miss.For developing your defensive cyber skills, you must start as a generalist. Your knowledge must be an inch deep and mile wide, simply to understand where you need to go in the future. This starts with basic certification and terminology. From here you will learn more complex concepts and develop into a specialty. Understand one big important thing: Understanding how to successfully use a security tool, is just as important as understanding the theory behind it. A SIEM is useless if you don't know how to perform a query.