All aspects of life are going online now. Your checking account, your pictures, even the thermostat in your home. It is easy until something goes wrong. There is one compromised login, one dodgy linkage, and now your personal data is no longer just that.
Cybersecurity is not a thing of huge corporations battling hackers in the movies. It is all about ordinary citizens protecting their data. And this is the thing, you do not need to be a computer wizard to learn it. Courses can help you learn how to begin the process of self-protection and end up not only knowing how to defend yourself but perhaps even making a career out of it.
- CompTIA Security+
Security+ remains one of the most popular entry points if you have recently decided to make a breakthrough in the world of cybersecurity. It is the basic certification to demonstrate that you understand the essentials, including how to assess the security level of an organization, guarantee the cloud and mobile environment is safe, as well as control incidents when they appear.
- Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)
CISSP is one singular qualification that security professionals always seem to discuss. It should be understood as a label that reads, “I am able to create and execute the entire security program, and not just work on troubleshooting it when something goes wrong with it.”
CISSP is not a starter certification-you have to have years of experience in the field before you can qualify-but you will need this qualification to get to higher positions such as security consultant, agent, and even as a CISO. It demonstrates that you recognize the bigger picture: policies, risk management, the tech, and the strategy that ties all of them to each other.
- Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
As the name indicates, you are trained to think like a hacker, except that it is legal. Rather than waiting for the bad actors to hit holes in a given system, CEH will show you how to do it and then repair what you discover.
It includes the penetration testing, identification of attack techniques and determining system weakness. It is also popular with those people who prefer practical jobs such as penetration tester or threat analyst. In brief, action-oriented and problem-solving skill and the desire to hack something good is all that CEH is a joy to be (and a respectable career).
- Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)
Whereas CEH is concerned with practical work, rolling up sleeves, CISM is concerned with taking the driving seat. It is more about how to manage the program to deal with security, governance, and danger and less about the technology itself.
When you have been in the technical side so long and it is time to make the switch into being a leader (as an IT manager, director of security, or consultant) consider CISM. It informs employers that you are not merely a problem-solver but you can operate the entire playbook and know how to keep a team moving in the right direction.
- Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP)
It is the middle ground of SSCP. It is by the practitioner IT people who feel the need to demonstrate they can do more than keep the bulbs burning. It gets down to nitty-gritty; it deals with access control, cryptography, incident response, etc., all the nuts and bolts of what it takes to keep systems secure day in day out.
It can work very well in the position of systems admin, analyst or network engineer. In essence, SSCP provides a good way to gain an advantage over others when you are already in the infrastructure field and want to prove that you can handle security jobs as well.
- Google Cloud Cybersecurity Professional Certificate
And if cloud is your thing, then Google also has its own easier-level cybersecurity certificate. The intention is to emphasize cloud safety and security of cloud networks, using the tools of the Google Cloud, and developing familiarity with AI and new computing environments.
It is targeted in such a way that it is pretty informal, you do not need any requirements to join it, and you may follow it at your own pace. It is particularly useful if you wish to be a cloud administrator or junior cloud security expert.
