In a recent Infoempleo and Deloitte study entitled “IT Employment: 17 professions with a future”, cybersecurity experts were placed among the five most demanded professions for the coming years.
In a country like Spain that concentrates, according to the study, 20% of the world’s cyberattacks, there is a significant deficit of professionals in this area. And not only within our borders is it one of the professions with the most international projection, since by 2020, but 1.5 million professionals of this type will also be needed worldwide, according to Deloitte, and up to 825,000 in Europe alone. facing 2025 (INCIBE data), demanded above all by banks, insurers, online gaming companies, social networks and hosting companies.
What does a computer security expert do?
The truth is that the figure of the cybersecurity professional is far from the “myth” that can be had about him. They don’t spend the day waiting for an attack or acting when the company is in danger. On the contrary, his figure is more that of proposing a series of methods to avoid any type of dangerous situation for the data of his company.
Among the functions it usually has:
- Formulate plans to protect computer files.
- Attention to emergencies and possibly dangerous situations.
- Monitoring of reports on computer viruses.
- Supervision of the use made of the most sensitive company data.
- Regulation of user access to information stored on company servers.
- Implementation of cryptographic protocols and security tools.
- Analysis and detection of security threats and development of prevention techniques.
- Study, knowledge and application of regulations on security and data processing.
- Create and develop security projects for both computer and communication systems.
- Forensic and malware analysis detected both inside and outside the company.
It is, therefore, within computer science one of the positions with a multidisciplinary profile, since it has to know and manage different aspects of software development, networks, encryption and system maintenance.
What does a professional of this type of study?
Currently, there is no cybersecurity career as such. Obviously, a degree in computer science or some engineering is usually the most appropriate way to direct our career towards these positions, which we must complement with a master’s, postgraduate or online course.
The offer is wide, and you have to be careful because not all courses and masters have, after finishing, an online degree. Among the best, we can highlight the online Masters for cybersecurity expert from the University Elizabeth I, which is offered in an online format but with guaranteed business practices. A permanently updated agenda, tools to take advantage of all this knowledge, including AWS Educate to train with Amazon cloud services. This centre is also part of the Innovative Business Group on Cybersecurity and Advanced Technology (AEI Cybersecurity).
The increase in cyberattacks and, above all, their specialization in different action vectors, will make it necessary not only for a greater number of professionals each year but also for their training and specialization to be of a higher level.
