Career as Ethical Hacker

There are no fixed timelines regarding becoming a successful Ethical Hacker. It depends on the projects you handle and how well you handle it. Depending on your work, you get recognised in the market, and people start approaching you. There are no shortcuts to success. However, the rate of success can be increased if you are rightly equipped with the proper certifications and courses from a recognised university or institutes. 

Pros

• Massive demand in the market.

• Identifying the weak areas of the IT environment.

• Building a robust IT environment against outside threats.

• Security IT firms are looking for more Ethical Hackers to test their products to make it more robust.
  
  

Cons

• Certification and the courses, if not done from good recognised institutes or colleges would be a hindrance to your ethical hacking career

• Demand is vast, but the process of hiring is quite inconsistent. 

• Many are using it for the wrong purposes leading to many companies not able to build trust in them.

• Lack of research facilities in India.

With the rise of digitisation, everything is available at our tips with the touch of our smartphones, tablets or computers. With it, the rise of threats has also increased daily. There are new ways to hack our systems, bank accounts, using our credit/debit cards without our permission. So, nowadays, there is a rising need for data security. Also, various companies, including the IT security companies, need Ethical Hackers so that they can keep their IT environment safe. The scope to it is vast as various government organisations also hire them.

Nowadays, all our lives are imbibed in the digital world. We have provided all our details starting from our identity proof to our card details to our relationship status in the digital world. So, with the risk of digital attacks, companies nowadays take extra care to save their data. They look for stronger IT security. However, everything is vulnerable. So, various companies, both private and government, look for Ethical Hackers for full time or as an independent consultancy to work on their systems and gap the differences in their system. Even the demand for Ethical Hackers is quite high in the IT security firms. They want to see the robustness of their security products before launching it into the market. This paves a path to the rising momentum for the need of Ethical Hackers in the market.

• After 10th, you should opt for Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics stream with Computer Science as a mandatory subject with it.

• After 12th, you should go for B. Tech, BE or B.Sc. in Computer Science or IT engineering. There are some institutes which have specific specialised courses related to hacking also.

• After graduation, you can opt for higher studies in the form of M.Tech or M.Sc in Computer Science. For Postgraduate and doctoral programs, the candidates should go through GATE examinations if you are doing from govt. recognised institutes like IITs, IISc scope of the scholarship is available as per your merit.

• Excellent working knowledge in C, C++, Python and Ruby is a must.

• There are various certifications which should be done to be recognised as an ethical hacker in the market like CISSP, TICSA, Security+, Cloud computing, risk management and application development from reputed institutes like NIIT, DICC and SimpliLearn.

• You should definitely go for CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker) course which would help you in getting an edge over others, and it is mandatory to be known in this field.

• The course fees for Diploma, UG, PG and Doctoral programme multiple colleges vary. Course fees for govt. recognised institutions vary from private organisations. The details of the course fees would be available on the official website of the respective colleges.

• Regarding certifications, it depends on various institutes. For institutes like Delhi Institute of Computer Courses (DICC) the course fees are around Rs 18,000/- for a course duration of 2-3 months. Various institutes have different fees which would be either available on their official websites or upon discussing with them they would provide you with the fees as per the course you opt.

As mentioned above, there are various colleges where you could start your UG in computer science and go forward with various certifications and further studies. Some of the institutes provide computer science for UG level.

Source- India Today, 2019

Various institutes and colleges are providing the certifications for Ethical hacking. The courses vary from classroom to online study. Some famous institutes are NIIT, Delhi Institute of Computer Courses, DOEACC, Calicut, Institute of Information security. The course fees regarding it would be available on their official websites.

Some important literature

1. RTFM Red Team Field Manual by Ben Clark

2. CISSP All One Guide by Shon Harris

3. Applied Cryptography Protocols Algorithms Source in C by Bruce Schneier

4. Hacking-The Art of Exploitation by Jon Erickson

• Due to your qualifications and experience, you can easily be administered into any IT role in any organisation. There are many other roles in IT, apart from being an ethical hacker.

• You can work as a programmer, or as a tester for the code written. You can also work in the IT hardware industry where you can provide your inputs and be successful.

Content on this page is by Career Expert Mrs. Kum Kum Tandon MA (Psychology), M.Ed, Diploma in Educational Psychology, Vocational Guidance & Counseling (NCERT, Delhi) | View Complete Profile