Page 38 - Cybersecurity Career Guide for North Dakota

careers: Companies of All Kinds
38 START-ENGINEERING.COM
Jobs Available
Everywhere!
America’s top companies for pay top dollar for cyber sleuths.
What do video game publisher Electronic Arts, online career networking service LinkedIn, and Reverb, a web-based marketplace for music gear, have in common? They’re recent victims of cyberattacks. Black- hat hackers are routinely targeting all kinds of businesses—from retailers to power companies—as well as govern- ment agencies, school districts, hospi- tals and ... well, pretty much any kind of entity you can name with an online pres- ence. Cyberattacks have “gone from
a novelty to a form of
destruction,” says Jon
Brickey, a senior VP at
Mastercard. “It’s a ma-
jor risk factor to every enterprise.” Accord- ingly, there’s a huge need for cybersecurity experts, who devise ways to protect propri- etary information and keep hackers at bay. For career-minded young people, it’s a field jam-packed with high-paying jobs and too few candidates to fill them.
The work is always challenging because
hackers are innovative criminals. Most companies and organizations collect and store the personally identifiable information, or PII, of millions of clients and customers. Criminal gangs or for- eign adversaries target PII for ill-gotten gains. Sometimes they’ll encrypt data, lock it up, and demand a ransom to free it. Or they’ll use people’s personal infor- mation for fraudulent purposes, which is called identity theft. But they’re not always aiming for PII. Many businesses have trade secrets they want to keep
from competitors— which makes them tempting targets, too. For instance, the hack- ers that hit Electronic Arts stole source code used in its most popu- lar games. Meanwhile, devices are increasingly becoming connected to each other via the In- ternet of Things. That makes life easier for consumers—“Hey, Alexa, play Dua Lipa!”— but it creates even more targets.
The upshot? Jobs in cybersecurity are avail- able in every industry
and government agency. Private-sector companies tend to pay higher salaries than public-sector agencies, even to entry-level employees. But the skills and experience cybersecurity pros ac- quire in either private or public sector jobs are similar, so moving from govern- ment to the corporate world or vice versa is always an option. Unfortunately, there will always be nefarious hackers out in the ether, devising new ways to attack. So the need for cybersecurity experts, Brickey says, “is here to stay.”
Big Business
Top U.S. companies hiring cyber professionals
1. Las Vegas Sands
2. BoozAllenHamilton
3. LockheedMartin
4. NBCUniversal
5. Chevron
6. BankofAmerica
7. Accenture
8. SAIC
9. J.P.Morgan
10. General Motors
11. NorthropGrumman
12. Leidos
SOURCE: COMPARITECH.COM