Information Security Careers: Become the Next Cyber Superhero
America has faced its share of threats. The domestic efforts that were once devoted to combating organized crime and drug trafficking were shifted to terrorism one September morning in 2001. Twelve years later FBI director James Comey predicts that cyberthreats will soon rival terrorism as “the primary danger facing the United States.”
Cybercrime poses a significant threat to our national security but it also has detrimental effects in your own backyard. Data breaches are among the most common and costly security failures for businesses of all sizes, with the average cost of a single cyberattack equaling $300,000.
Cybercrime is on the rise at a national and local level, which means organizations are desperate for qualified information security personnel to help protect their assets. The villains may not be masked or armed but they’re more dangerous than Darth Vader and The Joker combined.
So if the thought of being a “cyber superhero” excites you, there is no better time than now to act on it! We enlisted a few experts to share some insight on the future of the industry to help you determine if you’ve got the chops to combat cyber villains.
What is the outlook for information security careers?
Cybercrime is a serious threat that will not soon fade. So it should come as no surprise that the U.S. Department of Labor predicts employment in the information security field will grow as much as 28 percent in the next decade, which is nearly twice the average projected growth rate among all occupations.
This is because organizations are recognizing the need for information security experts to protect, detect and respond to malicious activity on their networks. These responsibilities used to fall upon general technology practitioners, according to Kellep Charles, information security analyst at NASA and executive editor of securityorb.com/.
Charles says employing security specialists ensures security incidents are identified and corrected much faster, thus saving the entire organization time and money.
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