We have all witnessed the changes in the way we work. Thanks to the Covid 19 Pandemic, in the blink of an eye, businesses all over the world had to scramble to reorganize their workforce in order to stay in business. Gone were the days of offices and cubicles. They were replaced by remote employees spread miles apart working on their remote devices from the comfort of their own homes.
Ten months later, this seems to be the new norm and hackers everywhere are having a field day. Even now, hackers and cybercriminals are still exploiting the confusion that was caused by this sudden shift in work style.
With each new point of entry comes an opportunity to get their hands on sensitive data and other goodies. There are strong concerns over extortion, ransomware, and other threats to cloud resources. These attacks are becoming more complex and invasive. Even the U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments were hacked.
With so many hackers out there, the demand for professionals with cybersecurity skills has grown substantially in 2021. There are great opportunities awaiting those who have such skills. The (ISC)2 conducted a study that shows even though many organizations have suffered economic losses in the past year, they plan to increase their cybersecurity staff within the next year. This study includes North America, Europe, Latin America, and the Asian Pacific region. Furthermore, there seems to be a shortage of available skilled cybersecurity candidates. To state the (ISC)2 “Our 2020 survey revealed that the gap between desired positions and those employed in cybersecurity has declined somewhat compared to previous years. Worldwide, the cybersecurity gap narrowed from 4 million worldwide in 2019 to 3.1 million. The gap in the U.S. shrank from 498,000 to 395,000, with the rest-of-world gap of 2.7 million.”
So if you’re planning to seek employment in this growing market, there are certain skills that you need to have to be a prominent candidate. Below is a list of the most significant skills you need to master.
1).Digitalization
One of the greatest skills needed in the new year will be digitalization. Digitalization is the process of converting analog info to digital form so that the process can be processed, stored, and transmitted. By digitizing your business model you can provide your business with new revenue and value-producing opportunities. Cybersecurity professionals must be able to understand all the reams of data and to explain their importance to the managers or executives in charge of such data.
2). VPNs
A VPN or Virtual Private Network is an older technology that allows one to create a secure connection to another network while protecting you from invasive eyes on public Wi-Fi. This is the technology most companies used in 2020 to ensure a secure connection for remote workers. Cybersecurity professionals need skills in this technology to prevent hackers from taking advantage of the weakness in VPNs due to the increase in entry points from remote workers.
3)Cloud Skills
It is also essential to have a good amount of cloud security skills in 2021. As stated by Jobert Abma, co-founder of the platform HackerOne, “Many organization have large ongoing cloud lift and shift projects where engineers and architects are required to quickly ramp up on new technologies and platforms, such as AWS, GCP, Azure, Terraform, authorization policies, data storage in the cloud, and applying separation between systems. It’s often hard to oversee the consequences of seemingly minor changes. Security professionals and white-hat hackers will benefit from a deep understanding of running applications on cloud providers and the tools that come with it. Security professionals will use the knowledge to test and attack. Cloud lift and shift projects open an organization to a different set of risks that they didn’t have to worry about as much when they were running on their own bare metal.”
4) White Hackers
White hat hackers are “ethical” or “good guy” hackers who sometimes are paid employees or contractors working for companies as security specialists that attempt to find security holes by way of hacking. White hackers who are skilled in JavaScript, Python, Bash, and Node.js can help in finding vulnerabilities in these apps due to their understanding of how they run and how their endpoints work.
5). Soft Skills
To get ahead and succeed in life, it’s not enough to have just skills and knowledge but one must master soft skills. Soft skills are the skills that allow you to fit in at a workplace. Some soft skills include teamwork, problem-solving, time management, stress management, and many others.
