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What Makes Cybersecurity a Rewarding Career?

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The Growing Field of Cybersecurity

Are you interested in cybersecurity? You might be considering a career in cybersecurity because you read about the field’s high salaries, excellent benefits, and seemingly endless employers and job openings. Yet there are also intrinsic benefits of working in cybersecurity. These individuals perform duties that are vitally important to the security of highly-sensitive data. In a cybersecurity career, you will work to protect databases, websites, and devices connected to the Internet from malicious hacks. The position is as much of public service as it is a means of making a living.

Why a Career in Cybersecurity is About More Than the Money

Why work in cybersecurity? While high salaries and benefits are attractive, cybersecurity professionals are more likely to be driven by a love for the technology and the interesting, challenging, and meaningful work that a cybersecurity career provides. Those who work in the cybersecurity field rarely receive any publicity for their hard work, even when that work is of national importance. Cybersecurity professionals may safeguard top-secret government information to ward off online attacks that could paralyze the country’s electronic systems and compromise our national safety. These attacks are only getting more frequent and far-reaching as the Internet of Things (IoT) grows.

Web security experts are the people we all rely on to help keep our personal information safe and prevent cyber terrorists, enemy forces, and other malicious individuals from accessing our data stored online.

A Booming Career Field

Employment of information security analysts is projected to grow 33 percent from 2020 to 20301, much faster than the average for all occupations.

About 16,300 openings for information security analysts are projected each year, on average, over the decade.2 Many of those openings are expected to result from the need to replace workers who transfer to different occupations or exit the labor force, such as to retire.

It is safe to say that graduates with a Master’s in Cybersecurity will have considerable career opportunities in cybersecurity for many years to come. As long as the Internet is around, the need for cybersecurity professionals will be as well. This type of job security provides a peace of mind that is more valuable than financial compensation alone.

Responsibilities of Cybersecurity Experts

Those who study cybersecurity learn about online data protection from several angles. They are trained in:

  • Cyber incident response
  • Vulnerability and detection assessment
  • Investigation techniques
  • Cyber risk and strategic analysis
  • Network/system engineering
  • Digital forensics

These are the problem-solving skills that government agencies, private employers, and other parties need to ensure that customer/citizen data does not fall into the wrong hands.

While solid financial compensation and job security from a career in cybersecurity are great benefits, there is a fulfilling intrinsic reward obtained through making the world a safer place. Cybersecurity is a good career option because the cyber professional’s day-to-day work could prevent a malicious hack and the potentially extensive identity theft or help ward off a cyberattack that could compromise national security. These intangible benefits separate the cybersecurity field from other computer and web-related positions.

Utica University’s online cybersecurity degrees prepare students to enter this demanding line of work. Cybersecurity graduates have the opportunity to pursue careers in cybersecurity that ensure network and data safety so that businesses, government agencies, and everyday individuals have the confidence they need to conduct business in this Internet-connected world.

Learn about the rewarding careers in cybersecurity

  • Discover the latest technology used by professionals in this field
  • Learn how to incorporate your skills to improve security measures
  • Find out how to leverage your degree to advance your career

Sources

  1. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/information-security-analysts.htm#:~:text=Employment%20of%20information%20security%20analysts,on%20average%2C%20over%20the%20decade.
  2. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/information-security-analysts.htm#:~:text=Employment%20of%20information%20security%20analysts,on%20average%2C%20over%20the%20decade.

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