Dr. Leila Powell at one time had settled for fascinating questions in the field of astrophysics like; “What are the stages of galaxy formation” “What is the end result of the collision of galaxies”. But she did not die contemplating the cosmos forever, and in 2015, she changed it and went into cyber-security.
“I did not think I had done something that influenced how people on a day to day basis much more” she states, rather than simply moving from one topic to another. Reasons such as looking for new challenges while working in academia, especially regarding the stability of employment and geopolitical concerns played a role in the shift as well.
Building Expertise From Astrophysics Past Professions and Work Experience
As of today, Dr. Powell is the lead security data scientist at Panaseer, a company that helps organizations identify weaknesses in their cyberspace security systems. The development of this sector of the economy does not come as surprise: certainly, many such people immigrate to the field of cyber-security.
Cyber-security features several functions whose objective is to shield a business from virtual threats. Different professionals adopt various roles in cyber security. Some work to prevent attacks by securing applications, networks and devices, while some are involved in response and recovery, as well as business continuity after an attack.
The cybere-security professional body ISC2 claims that 39% of the newly recruited employees in the industry came from non-IT industries, which reflects Dr. Powell’s case of career orientation change as she turned out to be one of them, “The problem space appealed to me because I could see things in the data that some people who are more in to cyber-security will miss.”
Addressing Imposed Skill Shortages
Dr. Powell does not look at the industry within which skills were acquired when hiring staff. “There are no lines. There are no barriers and I also advise her to encourage people who do not believe they have the right background to even the called this department to.” Palmer noted that many organizations, including Panaseer as an example, understood that they needed to leverage cyber security for sure.
“There is a gap that the real issue is not a lack of skills in cyber-security field but recruiting the people with right skills and competencies.” Says Amanda Finch, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Information Security (CIISec). “This also accounts for a lot of the shortage in Australia,” she explains. Yet there are very critical skills such as communication, analytical skills, thinking and problem-solving which are more sought after than the technical skills.
Career Opportunities and Salaries
To those who wish to dive into the field of cyber-security, bonuses do not seem far-fetched. A Cybershark Recruitment survey established that practitioners within one to three years after attainment of specialization earn on average £40,500 – £58,000 in digital forensic, and £39,500 – £55,000 in the threat intelligence.
The CIISec urges companies to widen their scope of searching for human resources, placing less reliance on the conventional technical expertise. ‘If you need someone to look at the logs and trends and figure out what is going on, that would have to be a once in a hundred years kind of analytical power.’ Finch articulates, ‘If you have an incident management team, looking after those people who are often the ‘voice’ of an organization, you need people who function well under duress.’
