What is learned in a master in cybersecurity and why it can be useful

Master in cybersecurity, how beautiful name you have .But what are you for? Before telling you, we go back to the winter of 1971.At that time, a certain Bob Thomas, a computer scientist at BBN Technologies, developed a small program with an academic character.In his research I found that a program could leave a trace wherever he went, a kind of footprint: Programmed in a PDP-10, Thomas circulated the invention among the TENEX systems through ARPAnet, father of the current internet.

And his trail said "I'M THE CREEPER: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN".Thanks to this little worm, software could be developed to conduct air traffic simulations .The security of many transactions could also be improved. Related

Ray Tomlinson, father of the email , was excited about the idea.And I tweaked the program so that it could be self-replicating. The first informatic worm was born .Bob had than to defeat his beast by creating a Reaper, a program that would detect and hunt Creeper, but the seed had been sown: quite ugly things were expected on the horizon.

And so it was: the German computer scientist Marcus Hess hacked a gateway in Berkeley and used the connection to access ARPAnet and bundle it.Using a worm, hacking 400 military computers, including mainframes of the Pentagon , with the intention of selling the files to the Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti.The same KGB.The criminal business was born.And with it a challenge: the astronomer Clifford Stoll detected the intrusion and deploy a honeypot , a virtual path, to hunt down the hacker .

CYBER SECURITY IN 2018

The one above is a story told in almost any faculty where development of software and cybersecurity are involved.But then we could find a PC for every 1,000 inhabitants.Today we have 4,021 million Internet users. A population that exceeds 50% of the planet .

A metropolis that runs four million searches on Google every minute, which produces 2.5 quintillion bytes per day.To contextualize, we could say that Internet civilization has been founded, by volume of data, less than five years ago.These wicks, cybersecurity is capital.The new citizens need heroes like Clifford Stoll.

LEARNING TO PROTECT THE FUTURE

What do you learn in a master in cybersecurity? It offers, on the one hand, a global view of the scenario, puts us in the current cyberintelligence market.On the other hand we propose the implementation of different secure access systems , data transmission and methodologies in hardware and software .Once we know the tools, the vulnerability process is given: how to detect and respond to threats.

During the master, competences are usually dealt with in the different types of malware , reverse engineering techniques, phishing, etc.Practical cases are usually put on the table at different levels of communication and security, with timed exercises to solve different incidents.

Finally, it is also common to participate in conferences and learn the possibilities of ethical hacking and how it applies to improving security.An example of these are the different awards that granted to users for presenting code tests where backdoors and faults are found from which to violate applications.

ANALYZING THE SCENARIO

But let no one assume that cybersecurity is strictly based on write and chop code day after day , in front of an ultra-monitored PC and connected to an encrypted server.Yes, that is also it, but there is a wide spectrum of action.

Responding to the owner, we can say that the information has an analytical cut, since it is learned to analyze the different computer risks, identifying vulnerabilities, threats and methodologies to prevent them .

Cybersecurity is a reactive discipline: it responds to threats as they arise.Of course, the key lies in the ability to act.The greater the speed, the damage will be minimized.What damage are these? As we already explained, and according to Juniper Research estimates, in 2019 cybercrime can cost about 2 billion dollars a year, without adding up that abstract cost implied by industrial espionage, where access to confidential data can destroy a business campaign.

To the aforementioned risk analysis is added a security economy : impact studies in different businesses, such as alleviating possible leaks or safeguarding data.In this predictive segment new technologies, intelligences come into play artificial and deep learning .

WHERE, HOW AND AT WHAT PRICE

Cybersecurity is one of those thriving new economies, one where the need for specialists is urgent, where supply is scarce but demand is piled up.The past Cybercamp already highlighted the more than 30 companies interested in hiring specialists in this field.

And where to study a master in cybersecurity? As we have stated on other occasions, academies such as U-tad have a master's degree with Indra, something also offered by the Camilo Jose Cela University, Carlos III of Madrid or the INESEM Business School.The offer is not as wide as it would be desirable, but if we can appreciate a marked trend.

Salaries do not fall behind either.Network security engineers or IT security engineers have gross salaries around 33,000 euros a year .To which we must add different internal objectives and diets.

And is that the cyberxtorsion, the theft of digital wallets and data hijacking -by ransomware -or the cryptojacking are present in our day by day.Something we will have to live with for the next few years.There is no completely insurmountable machine or 100% infallible method.This is a market where students have to learn and relearn.

Images | INCIBE, Pixabay.Infography created by Buguroo