How to get into cybersecurity, regardless of your background

It is more evident than in the past that organizations need certified cybersecurity professionals to safeguard data, software and hardware, and other assets of the organization. However, there is a shortage of skilled and certified people in the cybersecurity field. Learn cybersecurity for beginners at the Great Learning institute.

Learning cybersecurity skills has 2 advantages for the professionals, one it can land you a great gig in the industry across the world, and second, it will help you to safeguard your interests. It is recommended for beginners to learn cybersecurity basics at Great Learning for a rewarding career. As per the recent study need for cybersecurity is about 62% to meet the ever-growing demands of today’s business. Keeping this mind and to help you get the required skills in cybersecurity, Great Learning offers a 6 month certificate program in Advanced Computer Security, in collaboration with Stanford University.

What is cybersecurity? Why it is needed?

Cybersecurity, as the name suggests, is the practice of safeguarding and securing the data, computer systems, confidential information, and networks. This is the practice that saves the organization from cyber attackers. The goal of cyberattacks is to steal or destroy sensitive information, or unauthorized access to data and sabotage the businesses and extort money from the users and organization.

Cybersecurity is needed in these times as the world is connected to the internet and everything is having digital footprints. Cybersecurity is important to businesses, organizations, governments, small business owners, employees, and individuals. A lot of our devices get connected to the internet and everything can be tracked such as health records, what we wear, our financial information, power consumption, and where do we travel and when, etc. With this data, machines can build profiles to understand our behavior better than what we understand of ourselves.

Carving a career in Cybersecurity with technical background

Cybersecurity is a vast field that contains several sub-domains that are learned to build a career in cybersecurity. It involves complex systems, technologies, and architecture to safeguard the assets and data of the organizations, people, users, and individuals. With a technical background including Information Technology, coding, programming and scripting one can understand various cybersecurity tools and hence getting into a cybersecurity career is easy.

However one needs to do some research on what job in cybersecurity is suited to you, how your technical background will help in the cybersecurity jobs. If you are from an engineering background it is easy to grasp and learn cybersecurity skills. Information Technology and software development can learn easily the skills in cybersecurity, however need to have some interest, passion to learn and execute the cybersecurity domains.

There are a lot of related domains in the cybersecurity that you can learn if you from a technical background. Understand the basics, and fundamentals of cybersecurity concepts such as the 3 triads of cybersecurity that is confidentiality, integrity, and availability along with other concepts to protect and secure data and all the infrastructure assets of the organization. The 10 domains of the cybersecurity that you need to learn are as follows:

• Asset Security
• Business Continuity
• Communication and Network Security
• Cybersecurity Engineering
• Identity and Access Management
• Security and Risk Management and Compliance
• Security Architecture
• Security Assessment and Testing
• Security Operations
• Software Development Security

Jobs in the cybersecurity market for technical people

The various jobs in the cybersecurity for the technical people are as follows:

• Security generalist — This all in one job in cybersecurity
• Application Security — This job is all about securing applications that are built by the organizations by static and dynamic analysis
• Network Security engineer — This job is suitable if you want to secure the networks, network devices such as firewalls, NIDS, Routers, and VPN, etc.
• Cloud Security Engineer — This is the job as the name indicates protecting the cloud platforms
• Identify and Access Management Engineer — This job is to protect the identity such as user name and password, access rights, prevent unauthorized access, deal with various access control techniques such as Role-based accesses, etc.
• Penetration tester — The job of this profile is to do the work of hackers ethically by legally hacking the software systems, network, and devices so that we can identify the vulnerabilities before the hacker does.
• Security Architecture — To build policies and procedures by securing the systems and design, builds and manage the security architecture for the organizations.
• Malware and forensic analysts — Do reverse-engineer the malware and come out with insights on the spread, impact, and origins, etc.
• Cybersecurity engineer — designs, develops and implements the security solutions to defend against hackers and cyberattacks.
• Security auditor — reviews the security posture of the organizations and provides suggestions to enhance and improve the security.
• Security Trainers — trains the audience on the security best practices.
• Governance, Risk, and Compliance professionals — this is a senior role that oversees the legal, contractual, and regulatory compliance and suggests best practices.
• Cryptographer — protect data at rest, during transmission, and while processing by encrypting the data and the systems.
• Incident response analyst — protect organizations by attending the security issues and breach, and quickly addressing the threats before it causes damages to the organization.

Begin your career as cybersecurity professionals by attending Great Learning’s online courses.

Stepping into a cybersecurity career with a non-technical experience

Security is not a single career path, as we have seen in the discussions above there are a lot of jobs and there at least 10 domains you can think of learning if you want to get into security. Security is a vast field and offers jobs to any non-technical people with passion and interest in protecting systems and data of the organizations.

The need for security professionals is ever-growing and there are no signs of stopping, so the futures of the security individuals are bright and intellectual.

If you are thinking that you need a computer science degree in security and 10 years of experience in the technical field to get into a security that is not the way it works. Security needs sociology, technology, and psychology, and more to be a part of the security team. There are wide varieties of jobs to consider in the security field and it works for technical as well as non-technical professionals as well. Most people think that security is all about technology and they are mistaken as it requires data scientists, security and program managers, software developers, security architectures, and system analysts to work in security.

There are security skills required in careers such as market analysts, product management, public relations, and sales, etc. The security requires unique perspectives and abilities so being with a non-technical background may be an advantage. So there are requirements of skills from a diverse background as you have seen that there are unique talents required from various backgrounds in the security field.

Jobs in cybersecurity for people with a non-technical background

There are various jobs roles for the non-technical people in the security fields, they are as follows:

• Program Managers — This is the job role requires managing the security team and develop cybersecurity programs that are required to secure the data and the systems.
• Security generalists — This job role about a jack of all trades those who have basics correct and know security over the surface can fill this position.
• Cyber policy analysts — Making the cybersecurity policies, procedures, and processes are an interesting skill, and anyone with skills in process and policymaking can fill this role.
• Network Administrators — This role is for network people who know networks and transition into security by securing the networks.
• Security Auditor — one who reviews the systems against the baselines, standards, and policies that can find the threats and loopholes in the system by probing?
• GRC specialists — this is a senior role that shows the leadership and motivates people in the security team and can perform risk assessment, compliance activities and governess the security systems.
• SOC analysts — This is a job for one who works in the security operations center and works 24/7 shifts to find the breaches, solve the incidents and mitigate cyber threats, etc.
• Vulnerabilities analyst — Find the vulnerabilities by running the tools such as Nessus, Qualys Guard, etc, and those who work with various tools and know-how to make tools work can find jobs here.
• Programmers and scripting — Automation and customizing the various security products require the skills of programming and scripting which is suitable for people having the software developing skills
• Automation specialists — This is again automation of the security processes and working with different security products to enhance the output.

Final Thoughts

As discussed cyber security is a vast field and offers different paths in various technologies, systems, principles, and practices to everyone who wants to make a career transition in this field, regardless of background. The only things needed are the ability to learn new skills, different perspectives, and different abilities and passion with an interest to build a career in cybersecurity.

It is, however, recommended that you enroll in the cybersecurity course at Great Learning which is in partnership with Stanford University. E-learning is the best option to go for the cybersecurity training at Great Learning. Here is a free course on Introduction to Cyber Security, to begin with.

For more information on the various courses and PG programs, visit https://www.greatlearning.in/