Career Guide
Becoming a Cybersecurity Practitioner, it’s imperative for you know your career path and the roles required in this cybersecurity landscape.
In the field of cybersecurity, many organizations use the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) framework to organize and enhance their cybersecurity structure and controls. This framework is adopted by the U.S. Department of Commerce as a set of guidelines for reducing organizational cybersecurity risk.
In this topic, we want to use the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) as a guide to define career opportunities and roles that align with its core functions. By leveraging the NIST CSF, we will educate aspiring cybersecurity practitioners, enabling them to confidently communicate the same language and principles with their existing and future employers. This approach ensures that they are well-prepared to meet industry standards and effectively contribute to their organizations’ cybersecurity efforts.
First and foremost, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) is often visually represented with color coding for its five core functions. Below, we will use NIST CSF as a guidance to define the entry-level roles in the cybersecurity domain.
Roles in cybersecurity
Let’s look into NIST CSF and how cybersecurity roles are categorized.
Identify
Objective: Develop an organizational understanding to manage cybersecurity risk to systems, assets, data, and capabilities.
Chief Information Security Officer →
Oversees the development of the cybersecurity strategy and risk managemnet processes.
Risk Management Team →
Conducts risk assessments, and asset management, and identifies business environment and governance issues.
Security Analyst →
Assist in identifying vulnerabilities and potential threats to the organization’s assets.
Protect
Objective: Develop and implement appropriate safeguards to ensure the delivery of critical infrastructure services.
Security Engineer →
Designs and implements security controls and measures.
IT Infrastructure Team →
Ensures that security measures such as firewalls, encryption, and access controls are properly implemented.
Security Awareness Training Coordinator →
Develops and conducts training programs for employees to enhance security awareness
Detect
Objective: Develop and implement appropriate activities to indentify the occurence of a cybersecurity event.
Security Operations Center (SOC) Team →
Monitors networks and systems for suspicious activity and potential security incidents.
Threat Intelligence Analyst →
Analyzes threat data to identify patterns and potential indicators of compromise.
Security Awareness Training Coordinator →
Monitors and detects potential security incidents and breaches.
Respond
Objective: Develop and implement appropriate activities to take action regarding a detected cybersecurity event.
Incident Response Team →
Monitors and detects potential security incidents and breaches.
Incident Response Manager →
Leads the incident response efforts and coordinates with other departments.
Security Awareness Training Coordinator →
Handles internal and external communication regarding the incident, including reporting to stakeholders and regulatory bodies.
Recover
Objective: Develop and implement appropriate activities tomaintain plans for resilience and to restore any capabilities or services that were impaired due to a cybersecurity event.
Business Continuity Manager →
Develops and oversees business continuity and disaster recovery plans.
Disaster Recovery Team →
Executes the recovery plans to restore systems and data.
IT Support Team →
Assists in restoring IT services and infrastructure.
Senior Management →
Ensures that recovery plans align with business objectives and support overall resilience efforts.