Since 2010, Cyber-attacks are rated as tier 1 along with terrorism and pandemics by the government. The infrastructure of our country such as finance, communication, medical care, energy, financial systems and government systems are targets for criminals.Our dependency on computers and the internet has increased dramatically over the years and it is almost unimaginable that any of these stopped functioning.There are plenty of IT jobs generally, but as the costof computer crime is escalating it is evident that we require a large workforce to deal with this, which means that jobs in IT security are set to rise.In order to stop people hacking into systems and committing acts of cybercrime is necessary to have people with technical skills who can also think like a hacker. The more devious your mindset - the better the security becomes because you can imagine more attacks and ultimately design appropriate countermeasures.There are many definitions of Ethical Hacking but it involves investigating hacker’s tools and techniques in order to stop them. A full understanding of the criminal behaviour is important if we are stop them. For example, in order to effectively secure our home, we can make a better job of it by initially imagining how we would break in if we were the criminal and then designing the appropriate security measures such as locks/alarms etc. Ethical Hackers are essentially doing the same thing- except with computerised systems.Trained cybersecurity professionals are currently very much in demand and the majority of them are currently in the growing market of "security testing". This is often termed "penetration testing". These companies will test the security of a company or web site and then report their findings and their recommendations.Training as an IT security role involves looking at the fundamentals such as Operating Systems, Computer Programming and Computer Networking as well as basic security. A good background in these areas is essential to understand computer hacking of computers, mobile phones or cash machines, so a keen interest in technology and a curiosity about how it all works under the scenes is essential.Computer hacking is a fascinating and challenging subject area with great job prospects. There is a critical shortage of cyber security experts world-wide so the job prospects and salaries are excellent.So, if you can think like a criminal and love working with computers – this might be a great job, with excellent job prospects to investigate. You can check out live opportunities in IT on our serach page.
