You must know these skills before entering in cyber security 

So let's get started according to cybercrime magazine by cyber security ventures globally there would be nearly 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by 2021 and the number of internet users will hit a whopping 6 billion by 2022. These numbers speak volumes and this shows the growing demand for cyber security professionals across the globe.

Now that you know the high demand for cyber security professionals let us help you start your cyber security career by bagging the right skill set many of you out there might be waiting to become a cyber-security professional but are unsure of how to go about it and what skills you would need to get a cyber-security job not to worry we are here to help you with that after extensive research we have come up with the top five skills that will help you get into the field of cyber security

 

·         Networking and system administration

First we have networking and system administration the number one skill you need to have to enter the field of cyber security is computer networking it is the backbone of the internet it is imperative that you have an in-depth understanding of networking to start a career in cyber security a network is a group of interconnected devices and networking is the art of understanding how data is sent, transmitted and received amongst these devices you need to know various routing protocols the tcp and osi models govern networking the osi model is comparatively newer basically in these models all the protocols are grouped into layers and work together to help you receive data on your device sent from a server learning networking will help you understand the technical aspects of data transmission which will help you secure your data you can take up networking certifications like security plus and cisco ccna to gain a strong networking foundation another skill that will be beneficial for you is to master system administration if you think about it all of us are cis admins at some level.

system administration is all about configuring and maintaining computers you must be curious to know every aspect of your computer features and settings and play around a bit carry out a trial and error method and give yourself small tasks like recovering deleted files or monitoring old viruses on a vm explore new techniques put them into use and expand your knowledge

 

·         Operating systems and virtual machines

knowledge of operating systems and virtual machines to become a cyber-security professional you need to have a strong knowledge of operating environments such as Windows, Linux and macOS cyber security professionals largely use Linux and it comes with several tools to learn operating systems go ahead and set up and use virtual machines that is vms and play around with them this will help you gain hands-on experience as a cyber-security expert you should be comfortable working on any OS vms allow you to train and research in an isolated environment and help you maximize your skills the next point to remember is to know kali Linux it is the most widely known Linux distribution for ethical hacking and penetration testing it comes with several hundred tools related to penetration testing malware analysis security research computer forensics and so on kali contains several projects and you can learn a lot another good thing about kali is that it is free to use so what are you waiting for download and start right away remember that Linux is the backbone of cyber security and a commonly asked topic for cyber security interviews especially for pen testing roles.

 

·         Network security control

Network security control it is another basic skill that every cyber security professional should have network security control refers to the different measures which are employed to enhance the security of a network it is simple you can only safeguard your network if you know how it works how routers, firewalls and other devices work a firewall is a hardware or software that blocks incoming or outgoing traffic from the internet to your computer firewalls are required to secure a network as a cybersecurity expert you must be able to leverage a firewall to filter and prevent unauthorized traffic onto the network

In addition to that as a cyber-security expert you must know about intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems, virtual private networks and remote access an intrusion detection system IDS is designed to detect unauthorized access to a system it is used together with a firewall and a router you should be able to operate the IDS and recognize any security policy violations and malicious traffic on the network as many of you may have used a VPN is a connection between a VPN server and a VPN client it is a secure tunnel across the internet

 

·         Coding

So you might be wondering if coding is really required to become a cyber-security professional well it is true that not all cyber security professionals have or need coding skills however having zero coding knowledge may limit your opportunities in the future knowing a couple of programming languages will help you identify the plan behind an attack and defend against deadly hacking

 

 

Programming languages  make your cybersecurity career worthwhile we have c and c++ the c programming language is the backbone of most operating systems c and c++ are low level programming languages that you need to know as a cyber-security professional on the other hand python is a high level programming language that is becoming popular among cyber security experts today knowing python will give you an upper hand in your career it will help you identify and fix vulnerabilities. JavaScript is another high-level programming language that adds interactivity to web pages a good advantage of knowing JavaScript is that you can prevent cross-site scripting attacks from occurring as in these attacks the attacker implants malicious code in a web application speaking of php because most of the websites are created using php learning it will help you defend against intruders similarly html is another language cyber security professionals should understand as most websites use it and it is one of the easiest languages to learn another programming language that you can use is golang it is great for cryptography you can solve various cybersecurity problems with it then we have sql that is structured query language attackers use this language to damage the stored data one such example is the sql injection attack hence having a good understanding of sql will be highly beneficial another point we'd like to highlight is to have knowledge of assembly language this will help you become a cyber-security engineer assembly will help you understand how malware functions and thereby help you defend against it in the cyber security domain you can't just lock into a single language and hence it is advised that you're acquainted with a couple of them you can also do a crash course for these languages and learn them hence determine the best programming language for your cyber security role and get familiar with the basic.

·         Cloud security

Cloud security there is a growing demand for cyber security professionals with cloud security skills in the coming years companies are on the lookout for professionals with security skills applicable to public and hybrid cloud platforms such as amazon web services and azure more organizations look to cloud infrastructure to store data and run applications this includes the implementation of policies and technologies that protect cloud-based systems and devices just like application development security cloud security also involves building secure systems from the start. Companies want professionals who can manage the cloud security tools to identify and prevent any cloud breaches people with experience and knowledge in managing big platforms such as Microsoft azure AWS and the GCP are in high demand.

Notes:-

If you want to know anything more about cyber security please leave a comment. I will reply you as soon as possible