Ultimate Guide To Learn Cybersecurity What Is It - Cybersecurity Certifications, Salaries & Job Trends

Importance of Cybersecurity In Business

Cybercriminals attempt to access, change, or destroy data; extort money from users or the organization, or aim to disrupt normal business environment & operations. 

Cybersecurity measures are designed to combat security threats against networked systems and applications. IBM says the average cost of a data breach was $ 4.24 M globally and $ 9.05 M in the United States. These costs include economic costs ( cost of repairing damaged systems, cost of downtime, and lost revenue ), regulatory costs (including regulatory fines or sanctions costs), and reputational costs (loss of consumer trust, and loss of customer loyalty).

As cyber attackers target customers’ personally identifiable information (PII) —including names, addresses, national identification numbers, and credit card details— and then sell these records on the dark web & underground digital marketplaces. Compromised PII often leads to the great loss to brand reputation & loyal customer trust, imposition of regulatory fines, and legal action too.

Organizations with a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy, governed by best practices and automated using advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning, can fight back against malicious cyber threats to create a secure web environment & protect their hard-earned brand reputation.

Well hope you get a clear picture of cybersecurity what is it and why we need it!

Let’s move on to the next section and explore critical cybersecurity subdomains & CIA Triad to understand more about cybersecurity and what is it!

Cybersecurity Subdomains & CIA Triad

The core importance of cybersecurity in business is, that a strong cybersecurity strategy has layers of multi-domain protection to defend and fight back against cyber-attacks and protect organization data, network, and architecture from fraudulent activities. 

To best answer, the question “what is cybersecurity” and how cyber security works, we must divide it into a series of subdomains:

Here are the critical cybersecurity domains cybersecurity experts consider to identify potential threats and protect valuable data.

• Network security - Subdomain refers to security measures consisting of the policies, processes, and practices adopted to prevent, detect and monitor unauthorized access, misuse, or denial of a computer network and network-accessible resources.
• Application security - Subdomain refers to protecting the applications software operating on-premises and in the cloud environment against a diverse range of threats to minimize the chance of unauthorized access or modification of application resources.  
• Infrastructure security - Subdomain refers to protecting the computer systems, networks, and other assets that digital infrastructure relies upon for creating secure web environment.
• Cloud security - Subdomain refers to creating secure cloud architectures and applications for companies that use cloud services and infrastructure. 
• Information security - Subdomain refers to the data protection measures that cover activities, and data security frameworks, such as the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR, aim to secure your sensitive data from unauthorized access, or theft.
• End-user education - Subdomain refers to giving business staff, and teams training on the fundamentals of computer security, critical for raising awareness about industry best practices, organizational procedures and policies, monitoring, and reporting suspicious, malicious product or activities.
• Disaster recovery/business continuity planning - Subdomain refers to practices & procedures that refer to responding to unplanned odd events, such as natural disasters, power outages, or cybersecurity attacks, with minimal disruption to key operations.
• Storage security - Subdomain refers to the group of parameters for solid data resilience with numerous safeguards to support restoration or data recovery, minimizing the impact of a cyber-attack.
• Mobile security - Subdomain refers to the protection of organizational and personal information stored on mobile devices like tablets, smartphones, and laptops from different threats like unauthorized access, device data loss or theft, malware, viruses, etc.

All the critical subdomains are an integral part of the end-to-end Cybersecurity Model to defend the network from cyberattacks that are usually aimed at accessing, changing, or destroying sensitive information; extorting money from users; or interrupting or hampering business operations & processes.

Next, we help you explore what is cybersecurity CIA Triad and how it plays a foundational role in security systems development to keep your data safe and secure against growing cyberthreats. 

What Is Cybersecurity CIA Triad?

The CIA triad refers to an information security model made up of three principles: confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Each of these components represents a fundamental objective of information security, vital for enhancing data security posture, and helps organizations stay compliant with complex regulations, and ensures business & operation continuity.

  

• Confidentiality: The confidentiality principle asserts that only authorized parties can access sensitive information and functions. It addresses the need to protect sensitive, private information from unauthorized access.
• Integrity: The integrity principle assert that only authorized people, authority and means can modify, add or remove sensitive information and functions. Example: an unauthorized user entering incorrect data into the database.
• Availability: The availability principle asserts that systems, functions, and data must be accessible & available on-demand to the authorized users based on agreed- terms & conditions.

Priority of these principles may suffer, depending on an organization’s security goals, industry, regulatory requirements, or nature of your business.

For a better understanding of cybersecurity, what is it, and the importance of cybersecurity in business, let's explore some most common but critical cyber security threats that are malicious attack and seeks to unlawfully access data, disrupt digital operations, or damage critical information? 

Industries Under Cyber Attacks

Depending on the nature of the business, some industries are more vulnerable to cyber threats than others. An organization that holds sensitive data or personally identifiable information is a common target for hackers. Types of institutions or organizations that are most vulnerable to cyber attacks include

• Financial Institutions: Database contains customer credit card details and bank account details.
• Education Institutions: The database holds information on enrollment data, financial records, and personally identifiable information like names, addresses, and billing info. 
• Government Agencies: The database contains a wide range of sensitive data, from payment information to social security plan details, budgetary information, and more.
• Healthcare Institution: The database contains patient records such as social security numbers, billing information, and insurance claims.
• Corporate Organizations: Database has data such as intellectual property, marketing strategies, client and employee databases, contract deals, account transfer details, and more. 

The frequency of malicious breaches is growing at a massive pace. The volume of sensitive personal and financial information stolen is higher than ever before and the industry is confronting a heavy shortage of cybersecurity professionals.

“Cyber Security services, which include planning of cyber security strategies, policy development, and building security architecture, are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.7% over 5 years to become a market worth over $345 billion by 2026.”

These stats are more than enough to get you the growing demand for skilled cyber security professionals in recent coming years. If you wish to learn cybersecurity and build a growthful career in cybersecurity, let’s move ahead to explore Cybersecurity career trends & growth scope.

Cybersecurity Prerequisites

Before you apply for your first cybersecurity role, you must know these Cyber Security Prerequisites: 

• Bachelor’s Degree in IT/Computer Science, or a similar field.
• Knowledge of security firewalls, latest Cyber Security trends, and hacker tactics.
• Possess great ability to work under pressure in a constantly evolving fast-paced environment.
• Must have technical skills with sound knowledge of languages/tools such as java, C/C++, disassemblers, assembly language, and scripting languages (PHP, Python, Perl, or shell), Node, Python, Ruby, Go, or Power Shell is an added advantage.
• Possess the right eye for detail and outstanding problem-solving ability.

Top Cybersecurity Certifications

Many employers often demand certifications as a prerequisite for employment, having Cybersecurity certifications validate an individual's level of knowledge & expertise. Let’s see the most demanding cybersecurity certification for beginners & experienced levels.

The most in-demand cybersecurity certifications:

• (ISC)⊃2; Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP Course)
• ISACA Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA)
• ISACA Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)
• CompTIA Security+
• EC-Council Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH Course)
• GIAC Security Essentials Certification (GSEC)
• (ISC)⊃2; Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP)
• CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP+)
• GIAC Certified Incident Handler (GCIH)
• Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP)

With accredited cybersecurity courses and enquiring any of these cybersecurity certifications can help you earn good salaries. Next, we are going to explore the most demanding cybersecurity job role with their median salaries.

Cybersecurity Job Trends & Median Salaries

If you’re new to cybersecurity, and want to your cybersecurity career, you can start out in an entry-level IT role, such as a help desk technician, network administrator, or security software developer. You can enter this field as a junior information security analyst after gaining some experience in IT. Cybersecurity career path are available for individuals who want to grow their careers in cybersecurity. 

The following table contains the median annual salaries for top cybersecurity job roles, estimated by Glassdoor:

Read more on how to become cyber security expert. Security is not just about mastering a technology but it is its contextual application of it. The key is knowing the environment and applying appropriate controls. Enterprises look for professionals who have knowledge of both and as the industry is confronting the heavy shortage of cybersecurity professionals, it often becomes challenging to get the right talent that the reason, organizations are willing to pay them heavy checks.