Choose the Right Cyber Security Course

Choosing the Right Cyber Security course for a lucrative career in this field is a hefty task, since it is a vast field with many branches. Here we discuss these branches and respective courses.

Cyber Security is an emerging branch of IT that is now witnessing takers in hordes, given the sensational nature of news updates that report high profile data breaches world over. Cyber-attacks have become so rampant and ruthless that no company of any size or scale or industry is immune to such attacks. Every organization that holds mission critical information apart from data about employees, customers, vendors, and stakeholders, is at huge risk of getting attacked by hackers with malicious intentions. Cyber security is now expanding and there are many countermeasures that can be taken to avert strangers from hijacking computer systems and data. Before enrolling for a course to get into this side of IT, it is imperative to know the basics and types of cyber security, and the corresponding courses available.  

Any action, mechanism, device or procedure that minimizes the risk of a threat or vulnerability by either preventing it or minimizing the harm caused by it, is a security countermeasure. Here are the different types of cyber security countermeasures that can be taken by companies battling cyber intruders.   

• Vulnerability Management and Control: Identifying and mitigating risks by managing loopholes in the software or firmware of a system or a network is called vulnerability management. Penetration testing is one technique through which hired professionals ethically hack a system just to uncover its vulnerabilities. These Ethical Hackers then suggest measures to protect enterprise systems more effectively. EC-Council’s Certified Ethical Hacker is one such cyber security course that trains professionals in the process of penetration testing and other security techniques to safeguard a system.  

• Security by design: When a software or application has been designed from ground up with security in mind, it is said to be design-driven security. Various techniques are followed to make sure that the security is not compromised. These measures include defense in depth, code testing, audit trails, among others.

• Other similar measures include ensuring Secure Architecture, following Secure Coding practices, and using Secure Operating Systems and browsers.

• Hardware protection: Some hardware devices are deemed more secure than others, since they are harder to break into. These include USB Dongles, Computer case intrusion detection, disabling USB ports, using drive locks and trusted platform modules which enhance security up to some level. On mobile devices, biometric validation such as thumb impression, retina scan, QR codes, Bluetooth Low Energy (LE), Near Field Communication (NFC) help control systems and prevent unauthorized access.

• Capabilities in Access control: Access control lists generally are not sufficient to ensure security of data, but in conjunction with capabilities, they form a strong security mechanism.  
  

• Response to breaches: Once the breach has been confirmed, it is essential to follow a certain procedure to report the incident, find digital evidence to book the perpetrator and design recovery mechanisms for future. This branch of cyber security deals with computer forensics and the best cyber security course for professionals in this area is EC-Council’s CHFI or Computer Hacking Forensic Administrator.