Gain Practical Experience
Now that you have a good understanding of cybersecurity, the best way to move forward would be to gain some industrial experience. You can try to gain practical experience in these ways.
- Internships and entry-level positions: These roles provide a candidate with hands-on experience, and they familiarize an individual with industry tools and real-world cybersecurity scenarios. The companies don’t expect a fresher to know everything; what they value is your eagerness to learn. So, apply with confidence; you have nothing to lose; you will only learn from your mistakes.
- Freelance Cybersecurity: If you want to work independently on your terms and time then freelancing may be your calling. Cybersecurity freelancers offer their services to clients. They generally work as ethical hackers or penetration testers finding security weak points in the client’s system.
- Participate in competitions: Engaging in competitions such as Capture the Flag (CTF) provides the participant with practical skills as they have to use their problem-solving skills in a simulated environment of cybersecurity threat which test their expertise.
Cybersecurity Roadmap: Career Path, Skills, and Salary
Often, we hear news of someone’s bank accounts being hacked and they have lost all their money, or someone’s social media accounts have been hacked. These situations don’t become regular thanks to the domain of cybersecurity. It is a field whose main aim is to prevent illegal access to someone’s computer, whether the computer belongs to an individual or a big company. Cybersecurity offers a variety of roles, such as ethical hacking, threat analysis, etc.
These diverse paths require different skill sets, which we have discussed below. If you have decided to make a career in the cybersecurity field then you just need to focus on your skills as it is a well-paying field.