The twenty-first century can be called the most technologically advanced period of life in the history of the planet, which opened for us many prospects and ways for the development of the human personality and introduced us closer to discoveries in robotics, the Internet of things, etc.
However, when a society receives technological development and becomes more complex, then people must be able to adapt to the new requirements that are presented by modern trends. For example, if we compare the professions of the 20th and 21st centuries, we will find that a telephone operator has disappeared from our life, without which it was previously impossible to imagine communication with other people through the telephone. Naturally, it disappeared because there was an automation process and most of the functions that a person did is now made by a machine that is configured for a special program that performs the above functions.
The automation process is not new for our society, we met with it before, but in the 21st century there are many ways to improve existing devices and replace a human with a robot. In this case, people have a question, what profession will be popular in our century?
While reading the news magazines every morning, we come across such a definition as a hacker and this is sometimes mentioned in a negative context, but news does not often pay attention to those specialists who fight hackers and protect public, medical, and private institutions. All these individuals are interested in protecting themselves and for these services they hire cybersecurity specialists
Nevertheless, their life is being shown in various films and TV series, and perhaps one of the closest in this regard was the series “Mr. Robot“, which showed the work of a cyber security engineer on behalf of an actor. These examples have inspired many people who may be getting an education in this specialty right now or are someone who has learned all the basics himself and protects our lives from cyber threats in large companies.
The junior position that you will consider at a certain stage in your life will require you to have certain skills, which we can divide into two groups: technical and soft. Below we will tell you about them:
Technical skills are the abilities and knowledge required to perform specific tasks. They have a lot to do with information technology, mathematics, and scientific problems. You will need to learn the following skills:
1) Your main and most useful skill is analytics and research. You must constantly be in research, constantly analyze the information received for the presence of critical vulnerabilities. This skill will allow you to react more quickly to attacks from hackers.
2) The second skill is knowing the system where you work. You must learn and know absolutely all the available information about what you use as your tools. This way you will understand what is happening and will be able to minimize the risks of your activities.
3) The third skill is coding. You should have an idea of what language you will be using to write your software, and also have a better understanding of the general information about all programming languages to understand how vulnerable they are to security breaches.
Soft skills are the ability to communicate with a team, or to act within society to achieve their goals. You will need to learn the following skills:
1) The main attribute of any profession is self-education. If you have the motivation to learn something new every day, then you will be able to perform better in your field and respond more quickly to whatever happens.
2) The second attribute of any profession is self-criticism. You must be able to analyze your code, your system for critical points that can be detected by hackers. Even if you think your code is perfect, it is worth reviewing it daily and you will discover something new.
3) The last skill is the ability to openly express your work on paper. You do not need to be an expert in writing texts, but you should briefly convey what you did and what methods you used for your employer, who will be interested in knowing what you are doing.
Education in cybersecurity is necessary, because you cannot work with modern technologies with knowledge that would be relevant in 2010, but not in our time. However, if we are talking about the education that you can get at the university, then there is no correct answer. Let’s take a look at two positions and choose for yourself what is right for the start of your career.
1) The popular opinion is that there is no need to get an education at a university in this specialty, because most companies consider you in terms of your knowledge and various certificates that you received during the courses that you found on the Internet and took on your own. For example, you can look at one of the thousands of sites that are available on the Internet, “Cyber.Org“, which provides brief information about what certificates are required for a junior position, as well as where you can get them.
We would recommend the following courses:
Course from Harvard Online School: Cybersecurity: Managing Risk in the Information Age.
New York University Tandon School of Engineering: Introduction to Cyber Security Specialization
These courses provide you with the opportunity to become familiar with the basics of cybersecurity and gain the necessary skills to continue your study.
2) The unpopular opinion is that you need to get a university degree with a degree in cybersecurity. Having a diploma tells your employer or your friend that you have the necessary education and presents a short picture of what is happening in the world of cybersecurity. However, during this time, you could receive the necessary certificates and take the necessary courses, which are provided free of charge.
We recommend the following universities that provide quality education:
There are some tips that we would like to share with people who have just come to this field of activity. You can follow these steps:
1) When you have decided on your role, then you can find a person who works in a similar position and ask him what problems arise, what his typical day looks like, etc., This information will help you understand more deeply what you are planning do in this position and will be able to apply this information during the interview.
2) Your connections with people are the most important thing in this career. You need to build your network of contacts from the first days of joining the company, so that in the future, your contacts could recommend you to someone else, and you could also exchange the knowledge gained about the problems, or ask them to solve this or that problem.
If you are a person who is interested in the development of cybersecurity and is ready for new challenges, then our company is looking for you! Maybe you will become one of those who will change the industry and make it stronger together with us! Follow this link for more information: https://blog.binare.io/join-our-team/
