How COVID Made Cybersecurity The Star Profession
It’s almost been a year since we’ve been battling with the global health pandemic of COVID-19. Among the many challenges posed by the coronavirus, the job crisis was a major one. While it put many professions out of a job it also made many of the stars. Today, we are going to highlight how ethical hacking was among the latter of these professions which means that believe it or not, coronavirus made it more important and more demanded than ever before.
One of the main reasons why this happened was that cybercrimes increased tremendously in number. Although cyber crimes have always been present in varying frequencies all over the world, hackers are always known to up their attack game in times of increased vulnerability, fear, and anxiety. Whether it is luring people into the trap of fake COVID-related information sources, or taking advantage of the work from home culture and hijacking virtual meetings, cybercriminals have used all the tricks up their sleeves to create mayhem and an atmosphere of online insecurity.
However, it is only during times of distress and dire need that one realizes the true importance of something. And the same has happened with cybersecurity professionals. Up until now, most companies were denying the fact that cybersecurity professionals are essential to their operations and survival but now they cannot afford to put up with the pretense anymore. A lot of them have woken up to the warning call of growing cyber-attacks that cost the corporate world billions of dollars in hard-earned revenue, customer loyalty, and market reputation.
The year 2020 can be regarded as a rollercoaster ride for the digital world where on one hand, we saw how dependent we can become on our digital world because of its properties to virtually connecting us during the social distancing times, and on the other hand, we saw how vulnerable we can become at the hand of this rescue machine we call the internet. With the increasing intensity and frequency of cyber crimes on individuals, governments, and companies alike, cybersecurity has emerged as the go-to cure for tackling incidents like identity theft, credit card scams, cyberbullying, state-sponsored hacking, and more.
There has been a highly noticeable uptick in the employment of ethical hackers, forensic experts, network security specialists, security officers, penetration testers, and security consultants (to name a few) all over the world, amidst the crashing global economies. Along the same lines, we have also witnessed a steep rise in the availability of online educational platforms offering information security courses, especially ethical hacking training to young learners. Job portals have reported a significant rise in the number of vacancies in this market in all industries, whether it is energy, hospitality, information technology, cybersecurity, education, retail, e-commerce, telecom, or military. Apart from that, the pay scale has also seen a change for the good of those who are working in cybersecurity.
All in all, it can be said that during the last few months, our digital world has experienced high- level and sophisticated cyber attacks, whether they have hit the esteemed World Health organization, Fortune 500 companies, FireEye, the famous ‘Zoom’, or any other organization. It has all gone to show how cybersecurity has become the star of all professions, suddenly, but ever so right since it is high time we all gave this profession its due attention. We live in an era where information is everything to us and connectivity fuels our daily, essential operations.
Cybersecurity experts like CEH, CND, CHFI, and LPT (Masters) are, thus, none other than our saviors and guardians, especially in times of global distress.
