It’s not often that you learn of a ransomware hack that has caused a data breach or a devastating impact on companies and people across all industries. Cyberattacks are becoming more sophisticated and can target anything from credit card data to personal health records.
A cybersecurity professional’s job is to defend against these attacks by analyzing weaknesses and taking preventative measures. To be able to do this they must have certain abilities as well as non-technical skills.
A cybersecurity specialist must be aware of different platforms and computer systems in order to keep up with the newest hacking techniques. This includes knowledge of forensic investigation programming languages, as well as specific tools (e.g. tools used for digital forensics as well as penetration testing). For a cybersecurity analyst, for example requires knowledge of how IoT devices are connected to the Internet and can be hacked.
It is crucial that cybersecurity experts are able to recognize and assess risk in their organizations. It’s difficult to defend yourself against every threat because hackers have an almost limitless variety of ways to cause problems. For instance, a security professional should know that passwords should be long, complex, and include the use of upper and lowercase numbers, letters and symbols, and that passwords should not contain personal information such as birthdays or the family member’s name.
To be a successful cyber expert, you must have empathy for both the perpetrators and victims of cyberattacks. This helps them to understand what a cyber-hacker might be thinking. They can then put together stronger defenses.