Employers may want people with degrees, but they may not be able to find them. The security field is so new that a degree hasn’t yet become a regulated requirement, so you’re unlikely to need a master’s degree and should be able to get into the field without a bachelor’s degree. However, the lower your degree level when you enter the field, the longer it will take you to move up to a supervisory or higher position, unless you are willing to earn a degree while you work. Because you want a security career, you will have to learn how to perform certain actions and you’ll have to gain certain skills. To become an entry-level cybersecurity specialist, you may be able to earn early certification and gain some skills through a bootcamp in cybersecurity or even through online learning programs that are made to be easily accessible. Remember, governments and agencies are looking to make it easy to get into cybersecurity because they are desperate to find employees with the skills they need to protect their infrastructure. However, it can still cost significant funds and require you to spend months in learning seminars to gain these all-important skills.

• Regardless of your degree, it is important to constantly educate yourself on new technologies and threats.
• Remember, governments and agencies are looking to make it easy to get into cybersecurity because they are desperate to find employees with the skills they need to protect their infrastructure.
• Even earning an industry certification requires that you possess a specific skill set.
• Employment of information security analysts is projected to grow 35 percent from 2021 to 2031, much faster than the average for all occupations.
• To become an entry-level cybersecurity specialist, you may be able to earn early certification and gain some skills through a bootcamp in cybersecurity or even through online learning programs that are made to be easily accessible.
• Cybersecurity specialists inhabit an interesting role in the companies and organizations where they are employed.
• Work experience that is commonly considered necessary by employers, or is a commonly accepted substitute for more formal types of training or education.

Cybersecurity specialists generally must have these hard skills because they allow them to work with software to create better cyber security measures. When first starting your career, you may not be required to have a certification or a computer sciences technical college degree (depending on your future employer’s job requirements).

Education and experience

Depending on your level of expertise, you can earn certifications such as the cybersecurity analyst (CySA+). Any of these business or government agencies may require more cybersecurity and more professionals in the field moving forward. Hackers aren’t going to stop trying to steal our data or break into our sensitive facilities any time soon.

• Our online university degree programs start on the first of every month, all year long.
• Among them are intrusion detection, malware analysis and mitigation, programming knowledge and cloud security analysis.
• In this component of your information security specialist job description, you should use two bulleted lists.
• These professionals work with public and private employers of all sizes to ensure the safety of data for customers, government entities and healthcare organizations.

The certificate can be completed as a student progresses through the degree program. Regardless of your degree, it is important to constantly educate yourself on new technologies and threats. Sometimes, this may mean taking additional cyber certifications or classes after you are hired.

Soft Skills for Information Security Professionals

Also, cybersecurity specialists are those who decide on the most effective measures that will protect the enterprise’s information. Among the many cybersecurity jobs that companies are hiring for across all industries is the position of cybersecurity specialist. Like many roles within the wide-ranging, fast-growing field of cybersecurity, the responsibilities of the cybersecurity specialist can vary greatly depending on the company or organization and its specific needs. Career opportunities for current and aspiring cybersecurity specialists have never been more plentiful or lucrative. You are probably already well aware that cybercrime is continually on the rise. In fact, cybercrime is forecasted to amount to $10.5 trillion by 2025 — which is just a few short years away.

Consider some of the following professional organizations for cybersecurity workers. In addition to creating structures to protect interconnected devices, professionals in this sector safeguard sensitive assets for applications and data. At the app level, infrastructure security professionals develop and deploy effective databases to prevent access by bad actors. For data, this field protects information by building structures for backups and encryption.

Cyber Security Specialist

The degree program is designed with an IT Security core curriculum combined with a set of fundamental IT courses. In addition, the program requires the completion of a traditional group of general education courses. If your role involves supporting live production environments then you may be required to carry out periodic vulnerability and penetration testing of your systems from time to time. how to become a security specialists might find the job search competitive but understanding what experience is needed can aid in their search.

Penetration testing also allows IT personnel to experience the effects of a real cyber attack, and like a fire drill can give themthe real-life experience they need to deal with the stress from similar threats. Ethical hacking trains security specialists to think like a hacker when it comes to their company network. Ethical hacking skills will allow a specialist to find the holes a hacker would use and then plug them.

But they are an excellent idea if you are completely new to the world of IT, and they will give you something to work towards while gaining some hands-on work experience. Having the right certifications in system security may help you get a promotion. To ensure success, you should have extensive knowledge of cybersecurity, networking systems, and response management. A top-class computer security specialist should be able to easily identify gaps in the security network, implement appropriate security measures, and quickly respond to threats before they affect business activities.