Cybersecurity Training: Ultimate Guide on How to Become Cybersecurity Engineer

Introduction 

I welcome you all to blueguard.ng post on how to become a cybersecurity engineer. Before we begin let me walk you through today's agenda first. We will begin by discussing who is a cyber security engineer and what cybersecurity engineer does then we'll go through roles and responsibilities of a cybersecurity engineer and the skills he or she should possess. Moving on, I'll walk you through different career paths that you can follow to become a cybersecurity engineer. Finally we will end the session by discussing the salary of a cybersecurity engineer. So I hope agenda was clear with you guys.

let's get started then. So guys the most trending question these days is if or not one should consider a career in cybersecurity. If you would ask me, I would say definitely yes. Here are a few reasons as to why. 

First of all, you'll be part of an exciting and challenging field as a cybersecurity professional. You will be working daily to keep critical infrastructure secure and will constantly be facing new and engaging challenges. 

Secondly, you will find more job opportunities, because cybersecurity is such a fast-growing field. There's a high employer demand for qualified professionals.

Well to be precise, there are a lot of cyber security jobs to be filled and the demand doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon. You can earn higher pay since the number of people opting for cyber security jobs is usually less companies are paying more than ever to land highly qualified cybersecurity professionals. 

Lastly, you will be able to choose an industry that interests you, one of the most appealing aspects of cybersecurity is that the field can be applied to many different industries from government to finance to healthcare and retail trade. So a career in cybersecurity clearly has its own benefits.

 There are hundreds of job titles in cybersecurity, but some of the top positions include security administrator, cybersecurity engineer, security analyst, penetration tester, security consultant and many more, but as for today's session, we will be discussing about cybersecurity engineer. 

Who is a Cybersecurity Engineer 

A cybersecurity engineer is a professional who protects computer and networking systems from potential hackers and cyber attacks, security engineer provides a specialized engineering approach to cybersecurity, specifically regarding the design of security systems to avoid and fight against issues like data breaches or major data hacks. 

What Exactly a Cybersecurity Engineer Do?

Well, it's not surprising that the faulty software, often leaves networks vulnerable to malware, spyware, adware, phishing and different kind of attacks. A security engineer analyzes computer networks even when they're running securely and tries to foresee possible security issues that may arise in future. In short, a security engineer focuses on designing computer systems equipped to deal with disruptions like natural disasters or malicious cyber attacks. 

Roles and Responsibilities of Cybersecurity Engineer 

So guys since now, you know in general what a cybersecurity engineer does, let's look at roles and responsibilities of a cybersecurity engineer. Like I said earlier a cybersecurity engineers primary mission is to protect the computer systems and networks of an organization from threats and attacks. To consistently achieve this mission, there are many tasks and duties a cybersecurity engineer must perform. Let's take a look at few of the most common functions. 

First of all developing a set of security standards and practices that entire organization that he or she is working in should follow. 

Secondly monitoring networks and systems for security breaches or any kind of intrusions, installing software that helps with notification of intrusions or any sort of data breach, so that immediate action can be taken, performing penetration testing and network scans to identify weaknesses and vulnerabilities developing automation scripts to handle and track incidents, suppose if a data breach of some sort of cyber attack happens a cybersecurity engineer launches investigation against such attacks. 

The cybersecurity engineer is also responsible for developing and implementing a plan of action for responding to data breaches or any sort of cyber attacks. 

Apart from all this a cybersecurity engineer also overseas maintenance of firewalls, routers, switches different kind of network monitoring tools and virtual private networks.

He makes recommendations to management regarding security enhancements and improvements 

Finally, a cybersecurity engineer also train and educate network users on information security.

Well, these are some aspects of job that are handled or performed daily. You'll never know what a day in cybersecurity engineers life entails until it happens. So it's difficult to completely cover the full scope of duties expected of a cybersecurity engineer, given the fact that the role is defined so differently from one organization to another. However, these are the generalized rules every cybersecurity engineer performs in any sort of organization.

Skills Required to Become Cybersecurity Engineer 

Now that we know about the roles and responsibilities, let's go ahead and take a look at the skills that you should possess in order to become a cybersecurity engineer. Cybersecurity engineers walk on frontline of information assurance, performing detail-oriented tasks for companies and government organizations all around the world. 

Their education skills and training are the only things that stand between us and future attacks don't you guys agree with me? The job of a security engineer is highly technical one. So employees will expect you to have a bachelor degree in computer science, cybersecurity or a related field like information system general computer science or information technology security. Additionally, most employers will expect their employees to have an understanding of cybersecurity methodologies.

In addition to that, you should also have knowledge of current cybersecurity trends and attacks and you should have interest in researching of emerging trends and hacking techniques. 

You should have sound knowledge of programming languages like Java, python or what we call it as python net for pythonfoot.net, C++, bash and PowerShell. You should also have solid working knowledge of computer operating systems and different kind of networking protocols a solid understanding of networking concepts like OSI model, Renovant ports and services is also necessary after all its network that a cybersecurity engineer protects. Right, as with most careers there is handful of personal qualities and aptitudes that could make one well-suited for a career in cyber security engineering. So these are some soft skills that you should process to become a cybersecurity engineer. Generally speaking security engineers are known for the complex problem-solving skills and creative minds as a cybersecurity engineer, you will definitely be spending fair amount of time walking with an IT team or other departments. So you should have strong oral and communication skills. 

You should also have keen eye for details, that is, you should be very detailed oriented. You should be capable of working long hours and dealing with stress that is work under pressure. 

So guys, these are some hard skills and different kind of soft skills that you should process to become a successful cybersecurity engineer. Well on top of all this is good to get a cybersecurity certification. Certifications always prove that you have all the knowledge required to do your job. Well, so guys at this point i believe you must know what and who is a cybersecurity engineer, what he or she does and what are the skills required to be a cybersecurity engineer.

How to Become a Successful Cybersecurity Engineer: Career Path

Let's take a look at different kind of paths that you can take to become a cybersecurity engineer, right now. I have four columns here, the first column is feeder rules. These feeder roles are like stepping stones into a career in cybersecurity. Let's say right now you're walking in one department, but you want to switch to cybersecurity field, then considering one of these feeder role is always a plus point. But let's say you're not working, you want to kick start your career in cybersecurity. Then you can directly get into one of these entry-level loads apart from feeder role. I have entry-level, mid-level and advanced level rules. These are like course cybersecurity roles that are most commonly required for job categories across the cybersecurity ecosystem. 

Well, these are based on, experience educational level and credential required by employers. So like I said earlier you can get into feeder role or you can directly get into entry-level role if you are a beginner. So once you make your way to one of these entry-level role from there you can get into any of this mid-level roles as in cybersecurity analyst or consultant or a penetration tester. For example, let's say you're a cybersecurity technician, then you can go ahead and opt for cybersecurity analyst or any one of these mid-level roles. Same thing goes for cyber crime analyst and incident responder. But as for IT auditor, if you're IT auditor you can only go for cybersecurity consultant and penetration tester. It's not possible to become a cybersecurity analyst per se.

So once you've landed up in mid-level roles from there, you can get into one of the advanced level roles. For example from cybersecurity analyst, you can become a cybersecurity engineer or a cybersecurity architect or cybersecurity admin, same goes for the cybersecurity consultant as well. But as for the penetration tester, you can either become a cybersecurity engineer or cybersecurity architect. 

Well, this looks like a lot of information to grasp right? Let me summarize what we have learnt with respect to cybersecurity engineer. So like I said, if you want to switch your career, you can consider one of these feeder roles. That's either networking or systems engineer or software development or you can start your career with entry-level roles like analyst or incident responder. From these, you can make your way to become a mid-level cybersecurity analyst or cybersecurity consultant from then. You can become a cybersecurity engineer. So once you've become a cybersecurity engineer and you don't like the job or if you're not satisfied with the work, then you can always change your career by becoming a cybersecurity architect and suppose if you're a cybersecurity architect you can change for cybersecurity engineer as well, same from cybersecurity engineer to cybersecurity admin. So guys, these are some career paths that you could take to become a cybersecurity engineer.

But let me tell you one thing. These are not like fixed career paths. So you can switch your careers in between. 

Salary of Cybersecurity Engineer 

Now, let's talk about the most interesting part, salary of a cybersecurity engineer. Like I said earlier a cybersecurity engineer works on front lines defending private information from all kinds of trouble. So it's no surprise that when the right candidate is found businesses are more than willing to offer competitive six-figure salaries. Out of all cybersecurity roles. Let me tell you one thing cybersecurity engineer gets the top pick. 

Let's take a look at average salary ranging from entry-level to senior-level cybersecurity engineer, for our entry-level cybersecurity engineer average salary range starts from $54,000 and it can last up to one hundred and four thousand dollars ($104,000). But as for mid-level cyber security engineer, the starting salary is usually $68,000 approximately and it can go up to hundred and twenty nine thousand dollars. But as for senior-level cybersecurity engineer, the starting salary is usually $82,000 and it can go up to a hundred and forty seven thousand dollars ($140,000). 

So guys as you can see there's a significant demand for cybersecurity professionals, especially cybersecurity engineers as the work they do is incredibly important. 

These are just approximate numbers. So as you can see for an entry-level cybersecurity enjoy about approximately 81 million naira average salary per annum depending on dollar to naira exchange rate. And as for mid-level cyber security engineer, it's about 102 million naira per annum. And for advanced or senior-level cyber security engineer, it can go up to 210 million naira per annum. 

It looks very enticing, right? So as you can see the salary of a cybersecurity engineer is fairly high because of increasing and prevailing cyber attacks across industries, companies of all sizes are willing to pay more and more. So why not opt for a cybersecurity as a career? But it's important to know that it takes a strong drive to not only learn the basics but also keep up with new and emerging information security threats. If you think you have what it takes to make a difference, your first step is acquiring skills and training needed to succeed in cybersecurity field. 

So that's it guys, we have reached the end of the post. I hope it was informative. If you have any questions, please do put them in the comment box, we will definitely get back to you and stay tuned for more posts like this. Thank you! Happy learning.

Print this post