6 In-Demand Skills for a Career in Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity professionals are in-demand.
Cybersecurity jobs may be available almost anywhere you look, but employers can’t just throw anyone who knows how to work a computer into these roles. If you can’t meet cybersecurity job requirements, a cybersecurity career will be out of your reach no matter how much employers might need the help.
Here are some in-demand skills employers are looking for as they fill cybersecurity positions right now, some of which were adapted from a section of our recent ebook, Top 10 Signs You Have What It Takes For a Cybersecurity Career.
1. Analytical skills.
Cybersecurity is full of puzzles that need to be solved, and advanced analytical skills are required in order to detect threats and figure out how to counter them. Most analytical skills come from a mixture of innate curiosity and enough experience to see beyond the surface of what appears to be happening and figure out what is going on at the root of the problem.
2. Intrusion detection.
Being able to tell when someone has accessed a company’s network and what data they may have accessed is a skill that many employers say is in short supply. While any cybersecurity degree program will teach intrusion detection as a foundational skill, there are not enough students choosing cybersecurity as a major to fill all the jobs employers want to fill today.
3. Risk mitigation.
Even better than being able to tell when there has been a network intrusion is being able to mitigate the risk and prevent the intrusion altogether. Someone who is skilled at risk mitigation can potentially save a company thousands or millions of dollars, depending on the size of the company, by preventing a devastating data breach.
4. Cloud services security.
Many companies have migrated much of their hardware like servers and network components over to the cloud, but cloud security needs to be monitored just as much as hardware does, and requires particular skills and abilities. While cloud services often have inherent security within them, breaches can still occur. Cybersecurity professionals can help protect against these intrusions.
5. Creativity and problem-solving.
Being able to think outside the box is essential for cybersecurity professionals. They often have to strategize on what needs to be done to prevent situations that could lead to security failures and think critically about how to keep systems secure. Part of effective cybersecurity involves being able to think like a malicious hacker in order to circumvent hacking attempts, which takes creativity to accomplish.
6. Good discernment.
One aspect of dealing with cybercrime can be knowing who is trustworthy, diligent, and able to do a good job in a cybersecurity role—particularly when you are in a position to hire team members to keep a company secure. Discernment can be the difference between being hacked from within and avoiding a costly data breach.
A cybersecurity career can offer lots of success. Look for an answer to the question what can you do with a cyber security degree?
Florida Tech offers a cybersecurity degree that can lead to some of the best opportunities in this field and allow students to rise to the top with exceptional technical and other skills needed for this kind of work. Learn more about our Information Assurance & Cybersecurity program today!
%CODE1%
