Cyber-security needs your skills...

A little-known fact about cyber-security is that it is one of the most diverse industries out there. Think of any company. You'd be hard pressed to pick one that hasn't gone through some sort of digital evolution, in some shape or form. Healthcare, finance, mining, aerospace, hospitality - you name it. With the widespread and pervasive integration of technology into organisations, comes a new need for diverse cyber-security professionals who can translate their skills across all sorts of industries.

This is exciting, because it means that cyber-security seeks out, and rewards having teams from all walks of life. We need people who are adaptive, and who can apply their knowledge of their old hospitality job or "that time the bank detected fraud on my account" to create holistic and comprehensive cyber-security solutions. 

One thing I wish I knew years ago is that almost everyone will change their career at some point. You're not stuck with any one decision or career path. You can dream about a role and company to work for without already being an expert in the field or technology. In the case of cyber-security, providing a new perspective to cyber-security challenge could help save someone $3.92M (the average cost of a data breach in 2019!)

In my case, I studied Mechatronics at university, building robots and teaching drones how to fly. As you can see, most of this was just teaching me how to work under pressure. I now work as a Product Owner and Developer on a cyber-security product that helps organisations around the world detect when they are being attacked. I joined IBM with an entirely different skill set and I had to learn (and am still) learning a lot. 

My core role is coding — developing new features that give better insight to customers, so they can continue to detect the evolving breeds of attacks that are being executed. One of my favourite things about working in technology is the fact that one small innovation can have a huge global impact - so the part of my role that I am most passionate about is innovating and envisioning how we can become even better at fighting the cyber-fight. I am also fortunate enough to have had travel opportunities in my role, traveling to meet customers at MasterSkill Universities, and using those interactions to fuel new ideas for the product.

Technology changes often and rapidly the most important skill to have is a passion to learn and take on new challenges. If you’re a cyber-security enthusiast, or just want to help make the world a little bit safer, trust that you don't need to know all the hacking tools and technologies to get started.  

We need all sorts of professionals, with all sorts of different backgrounds to be successful in taking on the cyber-security challenge. When the diversity of thought is as diverse as the industry itself, then we can make the world that bit more secure.