Cloud security careers are set to be among the most prominent roles available to any cyber security professional in the coming years. As more firms become increasingly dependent on these platforms, there will be a growing need for skilled and experienced personnel to ensure these critical systems are safe.
Why Should You Pursue a Career in Cloud Security?
The foremost factor in any discussions on cloud security career refers to reasons for pursuing your career in this field. One of the first and striking reasons to pursue a career in cloud security is the rising number of threats. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, data breaches, insecure APIs, malware injection and data loss are climbing up in numbers.
Therefore, the demand for reliable cloud security professionals is increasing considerably in recent times. Is the demand for cloud security professionals a good reason enough? Yes, there are a lot of threats to cloud security out there, and you can resolve them by improving your skills. However, you have to check your profile and background before thinking of entering a career in cloud security.
What is Cloud Security?
As touched upon above, cloud security is a set of strategies and practices developed to protect data and applications hosted in the cloud. There are a wide variety of attacks that can occur in the cloud, therefore cloud security attempts to encompass numerous kinds of possible attacks. A well-designed cloud security strategy can vastly diminish the risk of cyber-attacks.
Some of the main cloud security risks include data being exposed or leaked, unauthorized user access, an authorized user having excessive access to data, and malicious attacks such as DDoS attacks or malware infections. An efficient cloud security strategy would attempt to significantly reduce the threat posed by these risks by protecting data, managing user authentication and access to data, and staying operational even during an attack.
Before you start on a cloud security career path, you should take note of the existing role you have in the world of computing. If you want to become a cloud security expert, then you must start your career with familiarity in IT roles. Some of the notable roles in this purview include Enterprise Architect, Security Engineer, System Architect or Engineer, Security Administrator, Security Manager, Security Analyst, Security Consultant and Network Engineer or Network Architect.
What Makes a Cloud Security Career Unique?
A major reason for these concerns is that cloud environments have their own unique demands that differ from on-premise technologies and methods. For instance, (ISC)2’s study found 81 per cent of firms say their traditional solutions either have limited functionality or don’t work at all when applied to the cloud. In turn, this means cyber security pros who are only familiar with these tools may find themselves struggling to keep up.
A career in cloud security will therefore enable you to turn your talents to an exciting, rapidly-evolving landscape and offer potential employers badly-needed skills. You’ll need to keep up with a wide variety of the latest threats and be able to work at speed and come up with new solutions to a range of emerging issues.
Skills Needed to Become Cloud Security Professionals
As a cloud security professional, you need to address the strategic, operational and tactical aspects of cloud security. Therefore, you should identify the essential cloud security skills that can establish your career according to your desired outcomes.
Apart from working in these IT roles, you should also have the necessary soft skills for your cloud security career. Here is an outline of the important soft skills for cloud security professionals.
Passion for cloud computing and security.
Faster cognitive capabilities.
Problem-solving skills.
Mindset for early adoption.
Dedication to challenge self-knowledge and skills on a regular basis.
Now, you know all the basic requirements to start off on a cloud security career path. You can clearly identify the relevance of your existing IT role and skillset for a career in cloud computing. Then, you can opt for certifications in cloud security or gain experience from hands-on participation in cloud-based projects. You could also complete a comprehensive cloud security training program for a good start to your career in cloud security.
Are You Ready to Begin Your Cloud Security Career?
As evident from the above information, you should opt for reliable cloud security certifications to become certified cloud security professional. In addition to the skills mentioned above, you should also learn and familiarize with the prominent cloud security standards, guidelines, best practices and frameworks. Many cloud service providers also provide official documentation and learning resources regarding cloud security.
If you’re interested in cloud security and passionate about building the best defense systems out there, it is the perfect career path for you. Institute of Information Security’s training program in Cloud Security is specially designed for those who want to enhance and upgrade their technical and programming skills to handle security challenges.