With the rampant development of technology and communication and the deep penetration of the internet, the IT/ cyber vulnerabilities and threats have also increased. This has led to the obvious rise in the need for strong and effective cybersecurity measures to ensure that the individual users, as well as organizations and their networks, are protected from cyber-attacks and breaches. In the past few years itself, there have been several major data breaches and cyber-attacks into networks of big corporations and governments of different countries, driving them to financial losses, data theft, extortion, vandalism, infrastructure damage, loss of digital assets, leaks in trade/ military secrets and even physical damage. The indirect cost of such attacks has been a loss of reputation, brand image and goodwill. This, in turn, has led to an increase in demand for experts in the field and accordingly, an increase in the number of cybersecurity certification courses. Despite this, there is a talent gap in the field today.
Future of cybersecurity as a career
As mentioned earlier, the demand for experts in the area of cybersecurity is increasing at a rapid pace. The main reason for this is that cybersecurity risks are not stable or static, they are evolving at a rapid speed as well alongside the development in technology and communication. More sectors are going digital and looking for cybersecurity solutions. So, cybersecurity too must cope with these changes at an equal speed as well as cater to the differing needs of different organizations and sectors, and this requires more professionals equipped with the relevant knowledge and skills.
The cybersecurity market itself is touted to grow to 170 billion dollars by 2020. The demand for experts is predicted to be 6-7 million by 2020 and it is also believed that there will be a gap of 1-2 million in this figure. Due to this gap, the already higher pay packages of cybersecurity professionals are bound to increase further. The need for computer science experts itself is unmet that there is a greater need for cybersecurity experts. As the number of the full-time graduate course in cybersecurity are few, more technical and IT professionals must be upskilled with the relevant skills through cybersecurity certification courses. You need not necessarily be a computer expert, engineers, IT personnel, mathematicians, legal experts, etc. too can be upskilled to meet the growing current and future demand for cybersecurity professionals.
Why will cybersecurity be the job of the future?
- Organizations of all kinds, sizes and sectors will require cybersecurity professionals in the future because there is a growing shift towards digitization, cloud computing and internet-based activities which generates several quintillions of data every year. This data is extremely important and needs to be protected from attacks and breaches. If such networks are breached into, confidential information can be hacked into and misused.
- As data flows seamlessly between multiple devices, there are greater entry-point and endpoint threats.
