The Demand for Cybersecurity Jobs Looks Good
I don't know what it is about protectors, but we all like to talk about the future. We like to predict the future. If we can plan for the future, the present is safe. While it's never possible to fully predict the future, you can cover many bases and scenarios. The demand for cybersecurity jobs looks good.
I have been in a slump where I've been feeling like the best of cybersecurity is behind us.
Ten years ago cybersecurity was in the news every single day and it was the biggest panic. I felt like I was doing something meaningful and that I was indispensable. It gave rise to a lot of entitled workers who quickly profited off the companies' oozing of cash to solve this problem. Cybersecurity was top of mind for CEO's as none of them wanted to end up in the news.
Well companies did burst at the seams to solve this problem, and those that could collect did collect and the problem became less of a problem.
People, Process and Technology
Solving cybersecurity is a pie chart of three things: People, Process, and Technology. At the beginning all we had were a few people that knew anything about cybersecurity, immature processes, and not great technology so cybersecurity wasn't very good.
The demand was immense and the world bursted at the seams with cash to improve on this problem.
Over time, more people were trained in cybersecurity, and that credit didn't go to colleges. The progression of cybersecurity was so fast college curriculum couldn't keep up. Instead, companies would pay for expensive training like SANS and other vendor training, these smaller and more agile outfits that could keep abreast of the changes.
Once those employees were trained they would train other employees. The baseline of skill in the cybersecurity industry began to grow and the number of qualified people in the industry increased.
A few years ago companies were still building brand new programs and this was my favorite thing to do. I loved to launch brand new security monitoring programs from the ground up and I did it at four separate companies. I'd come in and take it from nothing and create the skeleton of the processes, engineer the tools and lay the groundwork for a successful program, then I'd hire a few people and train then and then hand the program off to a manager. It was the most fun thing in the world for me because I enjoy creating.
There are very few of of those opportunities anymore to create, so I'm creating my own company instead.
The initial processes at these companies have continued to be improved upon and over time companies now have mature processes. People are no longer having to figure things out on their own or be creative, instead they are just following a set of predefined instructions. There's a lot of documentation.
So now there are a growing number of sufficiently trained employees, and well defined processes to follow, the next piece of the pie is the technology.
While all this was happening the cybersecurity vendor market exploded and venture capital poured in their funds to improve the tools that we use for cybersecurity. If you were one of the industries very best, it's likely you were working training a tool to do your work. And over time, tools and technology became so good that it became brainless to do the work and it gave rise to the advent of automation.
Now you have an adequate number of cybersecurity professionals, you have mature written processes, and you have tools that can automate those processes so automation began. It began taking away the tedious repetitive work and when it started doing that, less people were needed in cybersecurity. So there quickly became a surplus of professionals in cybersecurity. And this happened quickly over maybe a year.
More people were needed in cybersecurity at the beginning because there just wasn't any processes or technology in place to help solve the problem. Now there is.
So here we stand, with more people in cybersecurity than we need and a bunch of people with hopes and dreams of starting a career in cybersecurity standing at the doors banging on them to get in.
The future of the Cybersecurity Demand
Its easy to be pessimistic about this situation but I am here to tell you that the demand of cybersecurity grows. Yes, it grows (in the long run). The cybersecurity industry is about to change and it is closer than you might think. And this isn't about AI. AI is just one example. This is another, and there are others coming down the pipeline.
I want you to think of the demand of cybersecurity as an ebb and a flow. Right now, there are more people than we need, and with the invention of new technology it creates new things to secure and the process above starts all over again.
There will never be a lack of technological innovation, people create new things and then people think about security later. That is us. We think about security later. Its up to us to keep things secure. And we collect on that opportunity. There will be another cash busting event that will happen for us and it is in quantum computing and this is going to happen in just the next five to ten years.
Quantum computing is a new technology that promises to deliver huge amounts of computing power. It can potentially solve complex problems in seconds that current computers would take years to solve. While this sounds exciting, it also poses risks, especially to the encryption methods we use to protect sensitive data.
Currently, encryption relies on mathematical problems that are hard to reverse without the correct key. But with quantum computing, these problems could be solved quickly, making our current encryption methods vulnerable. This means that sensitive information like credit card details and personal data could be at risk if attackers gain access to quantum computing capabilities.
Cybersecurity professionals need to prepare for these changes. Recently, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) introduced new encryption standards designed to be resistant to quantum attacks. These new standards will replace current methods in the next decade, and cybersecurity experts will need to learn how to implement and manage them.
The demand for cybersecurity professionals skilled in quantum-resistant algorithms will increase. The amount of work that will be required to update current encryption implementations to new encryption algorithms is massive and there will be many, many companies that won't be prepared and they will need people right now and they will throw cash at this crisis.
There will always be new technology, and there will always be an initial demand to secure it that is higher than the demand of the people needed to maintain it. This industry works in an ebb and flow. It is still a fantastic time to begin in cybersecurity, so don't give up. It's prime time to keep abreast on what's coming down the pipeline so you, too, can be ready to capitalize on the next cash explosion. There will be one.
Tyler Wall is the founder of Cyber NOW Education. He holds bills for a Master of Science from Purdue University and CISSP, CCSK, CFSR, CEH, Sec+, Net+, and A+ certifications. He mastered the SOC after having held every position from analyst to architect and is the author of three books, 100+ professional articles, and ten online courses specifically for SOC analysts.
You can connect with him on LinkedIn.
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