How to Start Your Career in Cyber-security

Cyber security is a dynamic field with a shortage of professionals. Cyber threats, on the other hand, are on the increase every year. It doesn’t take.

Cyber security is a dynamic field with a shortage of professionals. Cyber threats, on the other hand, are on the increase every year. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that a demand for cybersecurity professionals will continue to rise. A serious talent shortage and the expansive growth of the field clearly shows that cybersecurity represents the perfect storm for career opportunities in the field of information technology. The question that lingers on the minds of most, however, is where do I start?

Cybersecurity come with many niches

Well, let’s agree that cybersecurity career is like saying banking career, that is, it is an umbrella name with many niches in the technology industry. For example, digital forensics, software/malware detecting, penetration testing, social engineering, auditing, are all areas of expertise within cybersecurity. To identify the most suitable career in this domain of information technology, one should first take stock of his or her skills. Nonetheless, a lack of skills should not be a concern since even the best cybersecurity expert had no skills at some time. You can teach yourself some fundamentals by learning how to use a few security tools such as SPLUNK. Nessus, Wireshark, Nmap, etc. Most security tools are free for personal use and a simple Google search would provide very helpful sources.

Fine Tune Your Skills

Next, hone your acquired skills to perfection, of course legally. You can practice what you learn in a personal home lab (This is something you can create for free). A lot of purposely made vulnerable systems have also been developed for such purposes (i.e. OWASP Web Goat, Metasploitable, Mutillidae, etc.). These systems contain vulnerabilities to allow novices with limited experience to sharpen their threat analysis and pen testing skills. With some skills, enrolling for a short cybersecurity certification course is important since it helps a learner acquire the necessary qualifications. With all these efforts in place, you will be competitive for a junior analyst position. If you can find a security professional to mentor you and provide you with real world cybersecurity project, event better!

Perseverance and Attitude

In order to protect yourself against cyber threats, you must ensure that for sensitive browsing, you are always using your own devices. Such browsing includes banking, shopping, or anything that takes your financial or confidential information. In case of an emergency where you have to make use of a device that you don’t own for sensitive browsing, you should always make use of the incognito mode for enhanced protection.

In case you are already starting your cyber security career, here's a list of entry jobs from Jobble that you can apply for.

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