Education · 1 of 4
The path
There are two routes in: a degree, or a help desk job plus certifications. Both work.
- 1
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Computer science if your school offers it, plus math. Start breaking and fixing things at home now.
- 2
Degree or first technical job
0 to 4 years
A four year degree in computer science, information systems or cybersecurity is the common route. The other is a help desk or support job straight out of high school while you certify.
- 3
Learn the ground floor
1 to 2 years
Networking, operating systems and scripting. You cannot defend a network you do not understand. This is where most self-taught people stall.
- 4
Get certified
3 to 6 months of study
Security+ is the usual first one. Its exam is up to 90 questions in 90 minutes with a pass mark of 750 on a 100 to 900 scale, and two years of systems or security work is the recommended background.
- 5
First security role
Ongoing
A security operations center analyst, triaging alerts on shift. From there: incident response, threat hunting, security engineering or cloud security.