Cybersecurity Where to Start
Almost 500,000 cybersecurity jobs just sit out there with nobody to claim them.
That’s because many people think cybersecurity is rocket science. And that to become a security professional or a web watchman, you need to be a graduate of MIT or a top player at Microsoft.
However, all these are just myths. And in this article, we’ll share with you how you can start in cyber security from scratch with little or no experience.
Likewise, we’ll expose you to the fastest career path to claim the unfilled cybersecurity positions.
But first, let’s ask:
Why Are There So Many Cybersecurity Jobs?
There are many reasons cybersecurity professionals are scarce. We’ll focus on the most important ones below:
1. The Alarming Increase in Cyber Threats.
As of 2020, cybersecurity threats are rated the 5th topmost business risk in the world. By 2025, we expect cybercrime to cost the world nothing less than $10.5 trillion. And every day, both local and global businesses lose money and data to ransomware attacks.
Only cybersecurity professionals have the right and specific technical skills to combat these security risks. So, that’s why many companies, whether large or small, seek to hire them.
2. Only A Few College Students Actually Major in Cyber Security.
Despite the increase in demand for cybersecurity experts, college students with a bachelor’s degree in computer science rarely choose cybersecurity.
Instead, they settle with software development, data science, artificial intelligence, or robotics. In fact, only 3% of university graduates have cybersecurity skills.
To combat these, several big names in tech like Microsoft and Google train interested candidates to take up a career in cybersecurity. Microsoft, for instance, hopes to train about 250,000 people with cybersecurity skills by 2025.
Likewise, Google currently trains about 100,000 people in data privacy, network, and computer security. So, if you’re looking to start a cybersecurity career, now is a good time.
3. Many Interested People Think You Need A Graduate Degree to Take Up Cybersecurity Careers.
You can easily start a new career in cybersecurity by taking paid online cybersecurity courses. Such courses often take less than two months.
Some of the online training is even free. And once you’re done, you can land yourself entry-level cybersecurity jobs as a penetration tester, an incident response analyst, or a network security engineer.
Interestingly, these jobs pay anything between $70,000 and $100,000 per annum.
How Can You Start A Career in Cybersecurity From Scratch?
There are a lot of career paths you can take to break into the cybersecurity field. Often, your journey depends on whether you have the relevant college degree, fundamental skills, and technical background or not.
In this article, we’ll talk briefly about the most common cybersecurity paths taken by people from non-technical backgrounds.
But if you already have a technical background or work in an IT-related field, we’ll chip in some cybersecurity career tips for you. So, try to tag along, okay?
Enroll in Cybersecurity Courses for Beginners
Switching to cybersecurity may indeed be easy. But it doesn’t mean you will just walk in and grab a cybersecurity job like that.
No, you need to make some sacrifices. And the first thing is to learn the fundamentals of information security, data protection, network security, database management, and others.
To learn all these, getting yourself cyber security or an IT-related degree is the conventional pathway if you’re from a non-technical background. But it’s becoming less popular.
Alternatively, you can enroll in one or two beginners’ cybersecurity online courses. If you need one right now, try Udemy, edX, or Coursera.
Get Yourself A Cybersecurity Bootcamp
In most cases, online courses won’t give you the hands-on experience you need to become a cybersecurity professional. You need more practical guides to gain the advanced cybersecurity skills required in real-life settings.
For that reason, many security professionals often join different cybersecurity boot camps.
They learn how to implement network solutions, manage a security breach, and familiarize themselves with different cybersecurity threats.
Besides that, they even get to make friends and build connections. In fact, with boot camps, you can get internship opportunities with a cybersecurity generalist or specialist as a complete beginner or a person already in IT or other tech fields.
Of course, that would go a long way to polish your skills. So, here is a list of some cybersecurity ventures with boot camps you can join. And here is a briefing about the technical and cybersecurity soft skills you need to build:
1. Technical Skills
To combat online threats and work with a security team, you can’t be a dummy at encrypting sensitive information.
So, you need to be versed in risk analysis, ethical hacking methods, antivirus software development, digital forensics, cryptography, penetration testing, cloud security, cloud computing, incident response, and others.
Likewise, you should also be able to identify malicious software, handle computer systems and build computer programs to ensure overall endpoint security.
So, you have a lot to learn. But fret not. You can learn all these within a few years with courses, professional certifications, and boot camps.
2. Soft Skills
Besides technical know-how, you should also be a smart presenter, a team worker, and a dedicated learner with top-notch problem-solving and leadership skills.
All these would be tested at interviews for cybersecurity job opportunities. So, take note.
Get Certifications Related to Cyber Security.
Relevant certifications are vital to building a successful cyber security career. You will find a ton of them for beginners, like the MTA certificates. And once you have them, you can start applying for entry-level jobs.
However, as you grow in cyber security, you will need more advanced certifications like the certified ethical hacker certificate, systems security certified practitioner (SSCP), and other information security certs.
With these, you can learn more about modern cybersecurity mitigation and open doors to new information security opportunities that pay more.
Apply to Entry-Level Jobs.
Once you have one or two cyber security certificates like Network+ or Security+, you can start applying for cybersecurity jobs at the entry level. Here is a list of entry-level cyber security jobs with little or no experience and their annual cybersecurity salaries:
- Cybersecurity engineer – $89,791
- Security operations center (SOC) analyst – $69,530
- Security architect – $57,859
- Information security analyst -$66,320
- Penetration tester – $76,237
- Cybersecurity analyst – $82,565
Final Words
Everything we said in this article may strike you like a comic story. This is because you probably believed that cyber security is meant only for born-and-bred techies.
To shed off that blinding myth, meet Gabrielle Hempel – the neuroscientist turned cloud security engineer. She and others here can tell you all about their cyber security journey. Good luck with yours.
