What is Cybersecurity?

Sanny Do
3 min readNov 6, 2020

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https://www.hcamag.com/asia/specialisation/hr-technology/the-most-dangerous-cyber-security-mistakes/229501

Cybersecurity has been a growing field with millions of jobs available. But what exactly is cybersecurity? Let’s start off by defining the basics, security. Security- “The quality or state of being secure- to be free from danger”

With that understanding, cybersecurity is the practice of defending computers, servers, and data from unauthorized users. They are responsible in patching vulnerabilities.

A successful organization should have multiple layers of security in place:

•Physical security

•Personal security

•Operations security

•Communications security

•Network security

•Information security

There are many different career paths for cybersecurity:

https://www.cyberseek.org/pathway.html

Let’s start off by explaining the different types of hackers:

There are white hat, black hat, and gray hat:

White hat are people who specialized in checking security weaknesses, maintaining security, and looks at vulnerabilities for a company.

Gray hat are the people who exploit a security to the attention of owners. A gray hat acts without malicious intent.

Black hat are the hackers that break into networks and have the malicious intentions to harm the company and/or steal personal information.

To put into simple terms, blue team job is to maintain internal network defense against unauthorized users. They can also update the latest security for a company. E.g. SOC analyst

Red team job is a group of people who’s job is to attack the system and report the vulnerabilities. They will breach companies so that the company can remediate the problem. E.g. Penetration Testers

Here are some cybersecurity certifications:

Here is a career pathway for someone that is a software developer and would like to get into cybersecurity:

That’s why information technology is such a great field, there’s endless possibilities to explore different paths! Technology will continue to rapidly grow and there are always job opportunities. It is a matter of networking and gaining experiences.

So now that you have a gist of what cybersecurity is, do more research and reach out to people on LinkedIn or other social media platforms that are in the field to gain some more knowledge about the industry.

https://www.cyberseek.org/pathway.html

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