So You Want to Get Into Cybersecurity This Year? Here’s What You Should Learn.

Photo by Ibrahim Boran on Unsplash

As we have been plunged into remote working, for many organisations, it has created a skills gap. Across the country, we have seen companies continue to recruit for roles in cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure. They are many roles this covers, this can be from Security Analysts monitoring the cloud estate to Site Reliability Engineers ensuring web services are coping with the huge surge in demand. As we have seen, even on the first day back of work AWS and Slack had minor outages due to the surge in users. What was interesting about the AWS outage was the knock-on effect as many companies rely on AWS. This was also seen in December when the majority of Google services went down.

1. Learn Cloud

It’s not too late! There are currently 3 mainstream cloud providers which many organisations seem to prefer, each offering different solutions, but skills are usually interchangeable. Each also offers a cybersecurity pathway and once certified, it will make seeking roles in this field much easier as the industry is gearing towards specialists.

Azure

A popular choice for beginners as they offer the AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals certification. This is an entry-level certificate with a learning path provided by Microsoft that walks you through what the Cloud is and how to navigate Microsoft’s offering. As many organisations are currently tied into Microsofts architecture (Windows Active Directory etc and many other legacy offerings) you will find this tends to be a popular option in the public sector. So opportunities for work will be available and even firms looking for consultants and cloud security experts, will be looking for those with skills in Azure.

Azure Certifications 🙇🏾‍♀️

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Resources to get you going 🚀

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Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Learning Resources

Google does offer learning material which is very comprehensive for the exams, it is sufficient to pass the exam but as people learn via different methods, it is worth also looking at alternative learning providers. I have listed resources below from Google going into depth the skills they expect from Cloud Engineers and then Security Engineers.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Resources 📖

2. Elasticsearch

What is Elasticsearch?

Elasticsearch is a distributed, open-source search and analytics engine for all types of data, including textual, numerical, geospatial, structured, and unstructured. Elasticsearch is built on Apache Lucene and was first released in 2010. Known for its simple REST APIs, distributed nature, speed, and scalability, Elasticsearch is the central component of the Elastic Stack, a set of open-source tools for data ingestion, enrichment, storage, analysis, and visualization. Commonly referred to as the ELK Stack (after Elasticsearch, Logstash, and Kibana), the Elastic Stack now includes a rich collection of lightweight shipping agents known as Beats for sending data to Elasticsearch.

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How does it fit into cybersecurity?

What people love about Elasticsearch is the ability to ingest anything, from logs from a firewall to logs from Azure. As many organisations have opted for using Elastic as a SIEM to ingest security data, it’s meant that the software has evolved and as such so has their offering. With certification now aimed at security users and engineers instead of just architects who build the cluster.

Certifications🎖

Resources and learning 📖🙇🏾‍♀️

3. Python

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Python is the language I highly recommend users learn as part of their cybersecurity skillset this year. It ties in perfectly with the first 2 skills above as Python is great for automation and can be used to make your life easier in the field and to also utilize some of the tools people love connecting with Elasticsearch. There are currently many boot camps and training providers offering free Python courses. The best way to learn any language is to put it to practical use.

But, first of, what is Python?

Python is an interpreted, object-oriented, high-level programming language with dynamic semantics. Its high-level built-in data structures, combined with dynamic typing and dynamic binding, make it very attractive for Rapid Application Development, as well as for use as a scripting or glue language to connect existing components together. Python’s simple, easy to learn syntax emphasizes readability and therefore reduces the cost of program maintenance. Python supports modules and packages, which encourages program modularity and code reuse.

Free Resources

If you have any questions you can reach me on Twitter: @StevenChap and I will be happy to answer.

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