Cyberattacks have widened their branches. They are no more limited to website hacking and DDoS Attacks only. We have witnessed various kinds of Cyberattacks happening in the world.
Talking about the current time, keeping the software, hardware and data safe and secure are more important than ever. Your mere negligence can result in a compromise of all your precious data. later we will learn more about cybersecurity courses, training, certification and jobs,
On the other hand, there is still a shortage of people with Cybersecurity skills. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, there will be 3.5 million cybersecurity job openings by 2021.

With that being said, today, we will explain what is cybersecurity, how you can get started, what skills you’ve to acquire, the best cybersecurity courses or certification, jobs available and nearly everything. If you are a beginner in cybersecurity, this article will clear all your doubts. In this “A Beginners Guide To Cybersecurity Training, Certification And Jobs” article, we are going to go over the various factors to guideline your path to become a professional Cybersecurity Expert:-

• What Is CyberSecurity?
• How to Pick a Cybersecurity Path?
• What are the Skills and Technologies You Need to Learn?
• Some Popular Cybersecurity Courses in India
• Cybersecurity Certifications for Beginners
• Cybersecurity Jobs

What is Cybersecurity?

Cybersecurity is comprised of technologies, processes and practices designed to ensure the integrity, confidentiality and availability of information.

While Cybersecurity may be referred to as information technology security or other names in the industry, it always aims to protect devices, programs, data, networks from attack, damage and unauthorized access.

The cybersecurity field has seen tremendous improvement in recent years. Along with following the best practices, now we have a set of evolving tools, risk management approaches and many cybersecurity courses that can help you learn, apply for cybersecurity jobs and make a fruitful career in this field.

How to Get Started in Cybersecurity?

So, are you looking to make a career in Cybersecurity, or just want to acquire new skills for better opportunities? Cybersecurity is a versatile career option and involves a lot of planning. It requires you to choose a learning path and decide what basically you want to achieve with your skills. Let’s go through all the phases one by one and see what becoming a cybersecurity professional look like.

How to Pick a Cybersecurity Path?

People have a lot of confusion while taking the first step in this field. They don’t know what technologies they should learn first, how they can get experience, career opportunities available, etc. Though I can answer a few of the common questions, the rest depends on your goals and demand of the employers.

One of the most common questions is — Do I need a college degree to make a career in cybersecurity? The simplest answer would be: not necessarily. As long as you are ready to work hard, focus on practical knowledge, contribute to open source projects, try to speak at conferences about your research, a college degree won’t matter.

According to Kristen Kozinski, an Information Security Trainer at the New York Times, “a degree isn’t needed for cybersecurity.” “Most of the people I’ve met in this field are self-taught,” she added. Our industry is pioneered by the people who don’t have any college degrees. They also did the above things and now providing opportunities to smart, hard-working people to enter the industry.

However, if you have a computer science-related degree, it may expand your options. I know large companies expect college degree checkbox but it’s not a deal-breaker or better, just another factor to consider.

The First Step

Coming back to the main question, the first step to choose a path is to identify your strengths based on your background. Are you a network engineer? A software developer? A policy wonk? or A management person?

Your preferences will help you decide which security role suits you the best. Some popular areas of cybersecurity are penetration testing, network security engineer, malware analyst, incident response, etc.

Once you’ve started narrowing down the areas, it’s time to research those fields and learn. Though there are many online and offline cybersecurity courses available, reading some books at the beginning genuinely helps. You can look for Security books by popular writers or publications. I also recommend you to visit the Awesome Infosec Github page containing a crowd-sourced collection of educational resources.

People say the beginning is always the hardest but there are groups like Information Systems Security Association (ISSA), Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP), Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) or ISACA, which are ready to help you at every stage of your learning.

Apart from these, It’s always better to follow and get in touch with industry experts so that you can reach out to them for advice. These people can even help you find your first job and drive your vehicle to the next career.

What are the Skills and Technologies You Need to Learn?

The first thing you’ll need in the cybersecurity field is the ability to understand programming languages. You don’t need to become a professional software or application developer, but at least being able to understand the other’s code is a good skill to have.

You must possess a solid understanding of the vulnerabilities and loopholes of systems. In this way, you can better analyze how one can predict them and help you prevent cyber attacks. Other than these skills, you’ll have to choose an area you want to focus on and gain expertise. Here are some of the common cybersecurity skills you can learn:

• Logging and Monitoring
• Network Security
• Web application Security
• Computer Forensics
• Cryptography and Access Management
• Penetration Testing, etc.

Some Popular Cybersecurity Courses in India

Cybrary cybersecurity Courses

Let’s start the list with the epitome of free cybersecurity courses. If you are fascinated by seeing the lucrative opportunities in the cybersecurity field but not sure if you’ll be able to take it to the next level, visit Cybrary.

It’s an online library for cybersecurity, IT security courses, and InfoSec-related study materials. You just have to create an account to access almost 500 free courses and each of them is ranked by its difficulty. Overall, you can learn a lot of interesting things on this website without spending a single penny.

Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)

This cybersecurity course is already among the most popular cybersecurity courses in India. It’s managed by the International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants (EC-Council). This council will also provide the CEH certification after passing the exam on course completion.

CEH course will basically teach you to perform security analysis of a system, find vulnerabilities, and secure everything against hackers. It also includes the usage of the same hacking tools and malware used by black hat hackers, but with good intentions.

Diploma in Cybersecurity (DCS)

A diploma in cybersecurity (DCS) is one of the most promising courses for cybersecurity enthusiasts. It’s a full-time regular program that can also be accessed online, based on the eligibility of the student. This course includes theory, practicals, case studies, study material, projects, internships, etc.

It’s a 6-months cybersecurity course that will ultimately lead to employment opportunities in the cybersecurity space of various companies and sectors. The Trainees of this course will also get an opportunity to meet industry leaders and to join the alumni network of ICSS.

Cybersecurity Certifications for Beginners

CompTIA Security+

CompTIA Security+ is an entry-level certification that is ideal for professionals having at least two years of experience in the IT industry. This cybersecurity certification focuses on information security and requires you to pass an exam of 90 questions with a score of 750 or more out of 900. The length of the exam is 1.5 hours and costs $190 USD in India.

This is one of the least expensive certificates you can get in the cybersecurity field. It certifies that a candidate is well versed with varieties of domains such as Access Control and Identity Management, Network Security, Compliance and Operational, Cryptography, Threats and Vulnerabilities, etc. Though this is a DoD-approved certificate and remains valid for a period of three years.

GSEC: GIAC Security Essentials Certification

GSEC is an entry-level cybersecurity certification for IT security professionals. It’s DoD approved and certifies that a candidate understands information security more than just terminologies and concepts.

The GSEC certification exam consists of 180 questions, with a length of 5 hours, and costs $1699 USD. The candidate needs to score 73% or above to get the certification. This is an open book exam but you’ll find lots of scenario-based questions to test the problem-solving skills of a candidate.

You can renew GSEC certification with 36 professional experience points as it will be valid for 4 years, in case you want to.

CEH (v10) (Certified Ethical Hacker)

The CEH is an intermediate-level cybersecurity certification that indicates a candidate is able to prevent common cyber-attacks and secure systems and networks. This cybersecurity certification requires you to pass an exam of 125 multiple choice questions with a minimum score of 70%.

The exam length is four hours and costs $500. If you are a self-study student, you’ll have to pay an additional $100 USD eligibility application fee and a letter of at least two years of experience in information security-related domains.

We can categorize the CEH exam as core, advanced, and expert. It’s designed to ensure a strong understanding of hacking practices along with scanning networks, SQL injections, footprinting recognitions, social engineering, DoS attacks, etc.

CyberSecurity Jobs

Cybersecurity is a versatile field. There are many positions available that you can pursue as part of the industry. But the salary of a cybersecurity professional depends on your qualifications, experience, negotiation capabilities, and many other things.

According to payscale.com, the average salary is Rs 498,088 to Rs 1,891,966 per annum. Though job titles differ in every company, here are some of the common roles you should know.

Here are some common roles you should know as the job titles differ in every company.

• Network Security Engineer: These people are responsible for ensuring the security of the network hardware, software, firewalls, routers, VPNs of their company.
• Cloud Security Engineer: This position usually involves taking care of security for cloud-based products or platforms.
• Penetration Tester: Companies hire them to legally hack into their network, software, systems, etc in order to find and fix security vulnerabilities.
• Malware or Forensics Analyst: These people work at a very deep level and dig into the malware to figure out what it does, where it came from, and so on.
• Incident Response Analyst: They are responsible for responding to security breaches or issues, identifying threats, and working on the proper solution to find the cause and ensure the damage is minimal.
• Security Generalist: These people are like a jack of all trades for smaller organizations.

Final Words

That’s all for this article. I hope you found all the information you were looking for. Cybersecurity is still an emerging field that has a lot of scope in the future. It doesn’t matter whether you learn the concepts online or offline. What actually matters is what you learn, it doesn’t matter if it is online or offline.
All you need is to acquire the necessary skills and step in the right direction for a fruitful career. If you still have any queries regarding cybersecurity, let us know in the comments below. We’ll be happy to help.