Interested in learning more about cybersecurity? Whether you’re considering specializing in the field or want to round out your current job skills through courses and certification, this article offers tips and resources to help you get started.
Talent and Gender Gaps
Cybersecurity faces an increasingly severe talent gap. The estimated global cybersecurity workforce is around 5.5 million professionals, while the additional trained staff needed to close the skills gap is more than 4 million, according to ISC2 .
The field suffers from a severe gender gap as well, with ISC2 estimating that women make up approximately 22–24 percent of the global cybersecurity workforce. These gaps and disparities, along with recent increases in cybersecurity attacks, make this the perfect time to acquire the skills you’ll need for a career in cybersecurity.
Focus on Fundamentals
There are many ways to acquire the skills that will put you on a cybersecurity career path. As Brian Krebs of KrebsOnSecurity points out, many computer security professionals don’t have computer-related certifications or university-level degrees but instead “got into security because they were passionately and intensely curious about the subject.”
That is not to say that such degrees are unimportant. They may in fact be required by certain organizations, but, Krebs says, they “should not be viewed as some kind of golden ticket to a rewarding, stable, and relatively high-paying career.”
So, before committing to an extensive course of study, take time to consider the skills that will be most valuable. That same KrebsOnSecurity article highlights the most useful skills for cybersecurity based on a survey conducted by SANS Institute:
The survey asked respondents to rank various skills from “critical” to “not needed.” Fully 85 percent ranked networking as a critical or “very important” skill, followed by a mastery of the Linux operating system (77 percent), Windows (73 percent), common exploitation techniques (73 percent), computer architectures and virtualization (67 percent), and data and cryptography (58 percent).
This emphasis on fundamentals is key. As Krebs says, “mastery of networking is a fundamental skill that so many other areas of learning build upon.”
Necessary Skills
For another view of necessary skills, you can look at the various requirements of trusted certification exams. For example, the LPIC-3 Enterprise Security certification lists the following high-level objectives:
- Cryptography
- Host Security
- Access Control
- Network Security
- Virtual Private Networks
The GIAC Security Essentials certification covers:
- Defense in depth, access control and password management
- Defensible network architecture, networking and protocols, and network security
- Web communication security, virtualization and cloud security, and endpoint security
- Incident handling and response, data loss prevention, mobile device security, vulnerability scanning and penetration testing
- SIEM, critical controls, and exploit mitigation
- Cloud: AWS and Azure operations
- Cryptography: Basic concepts, algorithms and deployment, and application
- Linux: Fundamentals, hardening and securing
- Windows: Access controls, automation, auditing, forensics, security infrastructure, and services
To start learning, pick a topic that interests you, and then dig more deeply. Resources include toolkits like Metasploit and WebGoat, custom Linux distributions like Kali Linux, and free tools like Nmap, Nessus, OpenVAS, and Nikto.
Additionally, security conferences not only provide valuable training sessions but also offer essential networking opportunities to meet others within the cybersecurity community. The following conferences comprise a small sample of events to consider:
Continue your cybersecurity journey with help from the following resources:
- 35+ Initiatives to Get More Women into Cybersecurity
- Cyber Seek Interactive Career Path
- Cybersecurity and IT Career Development Platform
- Hacker101 Web Security Class
- Linux Foundation Cybersecurity Essentials Course
- Offensive Security
- SANS Information Security Resources
- SANS Self-Study Online Training Program
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