Cybersecurity Career Master Plan

Dr. Gerald Auger, Jaclyn "Jax" Scott, Jonathan Helmus, Kim Nguyen, Heath "The Cyber Mentor" Adams

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781801078528
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Cyber Security
• Index: Computer Science

Start your Cybersecurity career with expert advice on how to get certified, find your first job, and progressKey Features• Learn how to follow your desired career path that results in a well-paid, rewarding job in cybersecurity• Explore expert tips relating to career growth and certification options• Access informative content from a panel of experienced cybersecurity expertsBook DescriptionCybersecurity is an emerging career trend and will continue to become increasingly important. Despite the lucrative pay and significant career growth opportunities, many people are unsure of how to get started.This book is designed by leading industry experts to help you enter the world of cybersecurity with confidence, covering everything from gaining the right certification to tips and tools for finding your first job. The book starts by helping you gain a foundational understanding of cybersecurity, covering cyber law, cyber policy, and frameworks. Next, you'll focus on how to choose the career field best suited to you from options such as security operations, penetration testing, and risk analysis. The book also guides you through the different certification options as well as the pros and cons of a formal college education versus formal certificate courses. Later, you'll discover the importance of defining and understanding your brand. Finally, you'll get up to speed with different career paths and learning opportunities.By the end of this cyber book, you will have gained the knowledge you need to clearly define your career path and develop goals relating to career progression.What you will learn• Gain an understanding of cybersecurity essentials, including the different frameworks and laws, and specialties• Find out how to land your first job in the cybersecurity industry• Understand the difference between college education and certificate courses• Build goals and timelines to encourage a work/life balance while delivering value in your job• Understand the different types of cybersecurity jobs available and what it means to be entry-level• Build affordable, practical labs to develop your technical skills• Discover how to set goals and maintain momentum after landing your first cybersecurity jobWho this book is forThis book is for college graduates, military veterans transitioning from active service, individuals looking to make a mid-career switch, and aspiring IT professionals. Anyone who considers cybersecurity as a potential career field but feels intimidated, overwhelmed, or unsure of where to get started will also find this book useful. No experience or cybersecurity knowledge is needed to get started.

Section 1: Getting Started with Cybersecurity

In this section, you will gain a high-level understanding of the cybersecurity industry including niche areas, specialties, and growth fields, while also understanding that satisfaction and passion are key to long-term growth.

The following chapters will be covered under this section:

• Chapter 1, New Career in Cyber… "Who Dis?"
• Chapter 2, Which Career Field Is Best for You?

Chapter 1: New Career in Cyber… "Who Dis?"

Cybersecurity is the hot new career field. It might even be hotter than the Kardashians. Why, you ask? To put it simply, technology is spearheading global growth. With new technology such as artificial intelligence and machine learning comes more cybersecurity demand. It's the whole supply and demand concept you learned in high school.

While more jobs are becoming remote, virtual, or replaced by robots, how do you think they are protected and secured? Cybersecurity is more than an IT helpdesk or the hackers you see on TV. It's a broad spectrum within all aspects of technology that has made cybersecurity an upward slope for careers, which will not change anytime soon.

What we know today will drastically change from what we know 1 year from now. We know that cybersecurity professionals make great money and get to wear hoodies and flip-flops to work. With all the positives do come some negatives you will learn about within this chapter.

During this chapter you will have me, Jaclyn (Jax) Scott, leading you. You are encouraged to have a notebook close while reading this chapter and following chapters to help with your data retention.

In this chapter, we will explore cybersecurity by breaking it down into the following sections:

• Learning about the current state of the industry
• Exploring the foundations of cybersecurity
• Understanding the pro and cons of cyber careers

Learning about the current state of the industry

Cybersecurity is rapidly growing because of emerging technology that is producing an ever-changing threat-scape. There is a reason for the rapid growth of technology, and it's outside of the next cool Clubhouse or Tinder app or that new self-driving car that picks up self-drinking slushies. It lies within history.

As you may have heard in history class, history educates us about our future. This is true even within cybersecurity. The world leaders are driven by one thing, what is that? Power! How has power historically been obtained? Typically, and sometimes the most prevalent example is war. As cyber has emerged, so has a new type of warfare called cyberwar, which is ongoing.

The battlespace and the soldiers have changed. As technology emerges and grows, so have the world powers seated at the executive table. China in 2019 was the first country to send an unmanned rover to the far side of the moon. We have self-driving cars and the prediction is that in 5 years, we could take trips to Mars. Technology is growing and maturing in unimaginable ways.

Understanding why cybersecurity is advancing in all sectors to include phone apps and smart TVs will help you grasp the projected technological growth and prepare you for a cyber career. It's crucial you understand the maturing threat-scape and vulnerabilities that exist everywhere.

Here are some things to consider related to the cybersecurity industry:

• Hackers are becoming more advanced.
• Tools for amateur hackers continue to get simpler.
• Cybercrime is exploding (and it's expensive for organizations).
• Automation is the future.
• Vulnerabilities are endless.

In 2020, many careers were impacted due to the global health crisis and pandemic called COVID-19, while cybersecurity jobs remained in demand. A primary reason is because everyone went from working in a controlled office space with secured networks and on-premises monitoring to working on grandma's 100/100 Wi-Fi with a default password that was 4 years old.

This new workforce left a lot of employees and companies extremely vulnerable to a cyberattack. There was a considerable increase in ransomware attacks during 2019-2020 because attackers exploited these vulnerabilities. This meant more job opportunities for penetration testers and cybersecurity professionals to protect the new remote workforce.

Cybersecurity is not going away because cybercriminals will always find more creative ways to lure their victims to "click", which keeps you in a cyber job long after your first marriage.

Cyber laws and regulations

Before we jump into the next section, we will cover some of the cyber laws that influence the overall cyber growth and impact this field.

As we are writing this book, cybersecurity laws and legislation are a sticky topic. Congressional leaders are uncertain on how to address them because they don't know how to manage the cyber growth and the World Wide Web. The threat-scape is changing quickly, making it very challenging to determine what to address. Many of the cyber laws we have today are reactionary laws, meaning something happened, then a law was developed and enacted trying to prevent it from happening again.

An example of a reactionary law is when the first significant data breach happened to Yahoo in 2016, when hackers stole approximately 500 million accounts dating back to 2014. This breach then sparked the need for data protection and next came the Consumer Privacy Protection Act of 2017.

The challenge is knowing what laws you need before something happens. How can you create a law to predict something that has happened yet?

In 2020, the average cost for a large business data breach was more than $150 million. In 2019, the average breach was only around $3.92 million.

To understand the purpose of cybersecurity regulations, we will give you a law overview to help you better understand the current state of cyber legislation.

Quick cyber law class

The United States legislative system falls within three broad categories: criminal, civil, and administrative law. Cybersecurity regulation comprises directives from the Executive Branch while legislation comes from Congress designed to safeguard information technology and computer systems. The purpose of cybersecurity regulations is to force organizations to protect consumer data from being stolen and used for malicious means.

It wasn't till the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) of 1984 that the US saw any significant legislation specific to cyber law. This law covered general crimes such as malicious damage to federal computer systems of more than $1,000, trafficking of computer passwords, and modification of medical records. CFAA received its first amendment in 1994 when Congress recognized the face of computer security had drast...