Becoming a Cybersecurity Expert

By Henry Bagdasarian

"Becoming a Cybersecurity expert" is a guide that was produced to provide a strategy and answer common questions for becoming an expert in the field of cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity is a new name for the computer and network security profession in a world where everything is increasingly connected to everything to communicate and exchange data. As we further discuss below, the cybersecurity risk landscape is changing as more consumers and businesses are shopping and communicating online, storing and processing data in the cloud, and, embracing portable, smart, and Internet connected devices to automate tasks and improve lives.

Cybersecurity has become a hot topic for two main reasons. First, increased hacking cases often result in compromised business information including personal information of customers which must be protected under various privacy and security laws.  And second, there is a serious shortage of cybersecurity talent according to many research studies and various countries are scrambling to find the best way to develop cybersecurity experts. In fact, because of the global shortage of cybersecurity experts, some countries such as Australia have expressed a desire to become the leader in cybersecurity talent export to other countries as a way to generate revenue. The cybersecurity talent shortages are expected to affect many countries and last for many years which is why this guide is written to discuss the risk, encourage professionals in related fields and students to pursue a career in cybersecurity, and, seek the support of businesses and governments to promote the profession.

Cybersecurity Risk Landscape

One of the main objectives of cybersecurity is to protect data but high impact and frequent data breach incidents have increasingly challenged the cybersecurity community due to some key factors that we need to consider.

First, businesses collect and retain huge amount of consumer and other valuable data in raw and structured format which are purchased or collected from many sources including user-provided data in social media. This is attractive to hackers as honey is attractive to bees. Second, hackers seem to always be ahead of IT security professionals and take advantage of poorly designed or configured systems to access and steal data before security experts have a chance to identify and fix the security loopholes. This could be due to the lack of motivation, ownership, and up-to-date cybersecurity skillset. Third, users who are entrusted with privileged access to critical systems and data are easily fooled with phishing and other scams due to lack of adequate education. And finally, the widespread use of various mobile and Internet connected devices which store and share data with other devices and their owners will present even more opportunity for hackers to challenge the IT security community. It is estimated that drones will be a $90 billion industry within a decade and Gartner estimates there are 6.4 Billion Connected "Things" today which are expected to grow to 21 billion by 2020 out of which over 13 billion will be household devices used by consumers.

Cybersecurity Job Market

The cybersecurity market is expected to grow from $75 billion in 2015 to $170 billion by 2020. According to industry analysis, more than 200,000 cybersecurity jobs in the U.S. alone were unfilled in 2015 which is up 74% over the past five years and it is estimated that the global cybersecurity job postings to be around one million.

The demand for cybersecurity jobs is expected to outgrow the supply of cybersecurity experts. Consider that 6 million cybersecurity related jobs will be globally available by 2019, with a projected shortfall of 1.5 million cybersecurity experts.

The U.S. News and World Report ranked the information security analyst career eighth on its list of the 100 best jobs for 2015. It stated that the profession is growing at a rate of 36.5% through 2022.

About "Becoming a Cybersecurity Expert" Guide

The "Becoming a Cybersecurity Expert" guide was written by Henry Bagdasarian and produced by Identity Management Institute to provide a strategy and answer common questions for becoming a cybersecurity expert.

The eBook intends to provide a short yet comprehensive guide to encourage and educate others for becoming a cybersecurity expert.

With the knowledge in this guide, interested candidates will learn to pursue a career in cybersecurity and reap the benefits of a dynamic, rewarding, challenging, highly in demand, and respected career.

Download "Becoming a Cybersecurity Expert" for a complete guide.