Cyber Security Intrusion Analyst
Careers Explorer:
Detect breaches in network security, understand alerts and inform incident response about system breaches.
Overview
Unfortunately cyber attacks occur and they can have a devastating effect.
As a Cyber Security Intrusion Analyst, you will typically use a range of automated tools to monitor networks in real time.
You’ll take your knowledge and expertise to interpret alerts that are automatically generated by those tools, including integrating and correlating information from a variety of sources and in different forms and where necessary seek additional information to figure out whether or not the alert represents a security breach.
When an Analyst has decided that a security breach has been detected, he or she will escalate to an incident response team, or other determined action, providing both notification of the breach and evidence with reasoning that supports the judgement that a breach has occurred.
An occupation found in all sectors where information is held digitally and where that information is an asset that needs to be protected including but not limited to finance, retail, telecoms, health, media, manufacturing and local authorities.
Specific cyber security mechanisms and controls you may need knowledge of or implement would include: patching software, installing software updates, implementing access control, configuring firewalls, security incident and event management tools (SIEM) tools and protection tools (Anti-virus, Anti-malware, Anti-spam).
Top 5 Tasks
- Understand when attacks, intrusions and unusual, unauthorised or illegal activity is occuring
- Know when to escalate a threat to a higher level
- Provide advice and judgment
- Implement cyber security mechanisms
- Work as part of a team.
Salary
Starting salaries for those who work in cyber security are between £25,000 and £35,000, while someone with several years of experience, can expect to earn up to £50,000.
In higher level leadership or managerial roles, you can earn in excess of £70,000.
Am I Suited?
- Technical competency
- Analytical thinker
- Good communicator
- Works well under pressure
- IT and maths geek
There are 300 billion passwords utilised across the world. Wow!
Qualifications
There has never been a better time to get into cyber security, with growing demand for experts promising increased salaries and job opportunities.
Technically, you don’t need any cyber security experience to get started, though many people entering the field will come from jobs that have similar skillsets, such as systems administration or information analysis.
If you can demonstrate the relevance of your existing experience – what recruiters call ‘transferable skills’ –there’s no reason why you can’t get a foothold on the cyber security career ladder.
Also having GCSE qualifications including maths and English will help.
Progression
