Page 28 - Cyber Defense eMagazine - November 2017

HOW TO BECOME A CYBER SECURITY PROFESSIONAL

IF YOU WANT TO SWITCH TO A CAREER IN CYBER SECURITY, THIS IS HOW

YOU CAN GET STARTED

by Ehtisham Hussain, Content Marketing Manager, QuickStart

At the time this article is being written, there are more than 35,000 cyber security jobs posted on
indeed.com, out of which more than 5000 were posted within the last 48-72 hours. According to
an article published in Forbes, there will be a shortage of 2 million cyber security professionals
by 2019. In fact, there is a shortage of one million cyber security professionals across the world
as we speak. With an average salary of more than 116,000 per year, and organizations literally
getting into bidding wars over skilled cyber security professionals, it is safe to say that if you
want to switch to an industry, cyber security should be at the top of your list.

PRE-REQUISITES TO SWITCH TO A CAREER IN CYBER SECURITY

You cannot start a career in cyber security without a background in IT. This does not mean you
need to come from IT exclusively, but you need to have a thorough understanding of how things
work in the IT world. If you are working in a different domain altogether, you will need to do a
number of courses and certifications before you can start applying for jobs in cyber security. If
you are just starting your professional career, you should look for career paths such as
Exchange Administrator, Network Administrator, System Administrator, and Web Developer.
From these career paths, you can get into email security, network security, system security, and
web security respectively.

To summarize this section, let’s just say that you need to put some time in the IT sector in one
of the career paths we just mentioned, and develop skills in Operating Systems & Database
Management, Programming & Coding, and Networks. Once you have that on your resume, and
have a clear understanding of how data works, how it is transferred, how it can be
compromised, and why it needs protection, you can move on to the next phase, which is
acquiring the relevant certifications.

BEGINNER LEVEL COURSES AND CERTIFICATIONS
While there are a number of courses and certifications being offered by Microsoft, Linux, (ISC)²
and Comptia in this category, we have narrowed it down to the following two:

1. CISSP

Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) will equip you with all the
information you need about best practices in terms of cyber security, its methodologies,
principles, concepts. After taking the CISSP exam, you will be able to start a career in cyber
security as an Information Security Consultant or an Information Assurance Engineer. You will

28 Cyber Defense eMagazine – November 2017 Edition
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