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A well-developed cyber security management degree program gives you the tools you need to become an effective leader in this field. Using several approaches, this degree program pulls from psychology, management, technology, science, law, and business to help you obtain the most up-to-date knowledge and skills you need as you work to protect the cyber-infrastructure and assets of your employer.

This degree program teaches you how to protect the critical information and assets of an organization, use real-time security solutions and continuous monitoring, take part in investigating cyber incidents, and formulate, update, and discuss short- and long-term cyber security policies and strategies.

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What is a Cyber Security Manager?

A manager in cyber security will be IT professional focusing on security systems and teams. They focus on possible network vulnerabilities, then create strategies to resist the attempts of cyber-criminals to get into information systems. They will be responsible for a team of cyber security specialists and may interact quite often with other departments and executives. If you choose to become a cyber security manager, you should expect to help your company prevent the theft of vital data such as personally identifiable information, credit card information, or valuable trade secrets.

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Steps to Becoming a Cyber Security Manager

  • Step 1: Enroll in a Bachelor’s or Master’s Cyber Security Management Program

  • Step 2: Participate in an Internship for Cyber Security Managers

  • Step 3: Find a Job in Cyber Security Management

  • Step 4: Earn Cyber Security Certifications

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Step 1: Enroll in a Bachelor’s or Master’s Cyber Security Management Program

As you look for cyber security degree programs at the bachelor of science level, focus on those programs that give students a wide foundation of disciplines in their coursework—these give you the most up-to-date skills and knowledge so that, once you begin working, you’ll be equipped to protect your employer’s cyber-infrastructure and other valuable assets.

Programs from schools that have been designated National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education, or any other CAE designation, are the most attractive programs for you to consider; the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Security Agency (NSA) were active in examining and naming these degree programs.

Coursework will teach you about protecting an organization’s information and assets using best practices and risk management. It will help you understand how to combine continual monitoring along with real-time security solutions to protect and defend against attacks. You may also take part in mock investigation of cyber incidents and assist in recovery of operations.

Step 2: Participate in an Internship for Cyber Security Managers

All of the work you do in your classes becomes even more valuable when you can apply it during an internship. You’ll normally find and take part in your internship in your junior or senior year. This is usually counted as a class, which gives you credits for participating in real-world events on the job. The hope in an internship is that you’ll be put to work in real-world settings on real issues, giving you the opportunity to gain professional experience. Getting this experience helps you to put together the material you learned in class lectures and gives you something to list as experience on your resume. Make sure you look for a strong, experiential internship where you’ll be doing more than filling a seat at a job site. This will support the development of the skills you need.

Step 3: Find a Job in Cyber Security Management

Once graduation is close, it’s time for you to begin narrowing down those employers you’re the most interested in. You may do this based on their job announcements or you may have always been interested in one specific employer, in which case, you should probably start looking into them long before your senior year. It may not be easy finding the security jobs in cyber security that most interest you, but they are out there and there are plenty of jobs that can act as a steppingstone to your dream career if you still need to gain experience in the field.

You may not begin working as a cyber security manager right away; in fact, it’s unlikely that you would since a managerial position nearly always requires significant experience. Instead, you may work as a security analyst, but you can easily move into a cyber security manager position once you gain experience.

As long as you have the required skills and knowledge, you’ll be able to find a position in cyber security fairly quickly; cyber-crime costs will soon hit $6 trillion. Your knowledge and skills are badly needed as attacks on computer networks are only continuing and getting worse, with the cyber-thieves becoming more and more sophisticated.

Step 4: Earn Cyber Security Certifications

The security certificates you can earn rely heavily on your education, job title, and tasks or functions you perform. As of 2019, more than 3,800 cyber breaches were exposed. More than 4.1 billion records were exposed to attackers. This is a 54 percent increase over breaches reported during the same time frame in 2018. Clearly, your knowledge and experience are needed—but your certifications communicate to your employer that you have the skills they want.

Whether you are looking to become a Certified Information Security Auditor, Certified Ethical Hacker or a Certified Information Systems Security Professional, you can earn certifications that will give you access to more career options. The effort you make to study and pass the exams to earn your certifications won’t be the only time you must think about them; it’s not one and done. You’ll also often have to compete continuing education in order to renew current certifications. How often you must do so depends on the certification, but most require renewal every couple of years.

What Does a Cyber Security Manager Do?

Before you ever show up for a job interview, you should know what your role and responsibilities may be. These could include titles such as security manager, cyber security manager, ethical hacker, security architect, or a different role with supervisory capacity. These managers monitor cyber channels through which information vital to the company comes in and goes out. It’s their responsibility to observe all operations taking place in the network so that they can manage the infrastructure that makes these operations happen.

Cyber security experts and managers will also manage technological resources as a major part of their job. The idea is to reduce risk and to make sure that there are enough resources ready to handle critical tasks and deal with crises. During a security career, you may find yourself responsible for decisions on proper use of computers, network architecture, software options, database policies, and other resources. As managers optimize resource allocation, they allow other employees to stay focused on the actions that pay off the most, which helps to lower the risk to the company as a whole.

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As security professionals, cyber security managers have to keep up to date with both internal and external security policies; they are responsible for ensuring that every employee is in compliance with the rules and regulations that have been decided upon by company managers and public agencies.

Cyber Security Manager Skills to Acquire

As a cyber security manager, you’ll need a wide range of skills to help you manage your team and the computer systems you are responsible for protecting. Here are just a few of the vital skills you should endeavor to cultivate.

  • Broad Business Knowledge:
    You need more than just the tech nuts and bolts to succeed in a management role, though these are vital. You also need to be knowledgeable in marketing, finance, accounting, operations, sales, human resources, and more.
  • Leadership:
    As a security professional, you’ll need to be able to influence members of your team and help them focus on specific objectives. From security analysts to security consultants, you’ll be responsible for them all, and you’ll need to be able to do this effectively.
  • Extensive Technology Knowledge:
    You’ll be studying the newest developments and hardware so you can stay up to date on what you’ll be protecting and what you’ll be protecting it from. While you don’t need to be an expert in every detail, you have to be familiar enough with each area that you help your team to align itself with the company goals and strategy.
  • Problem-Solving Skills:
    Being able to use creative methods to tackle the newest problem will make you a valuable manager. You’ll be facing complex InfoSec challenges on a daily basis and, as a manager, you won’t have the luxury of depending on someone else to tell you what to do.
  • Self-Awareness:
    Know what leads you to do what you do. What makes you feel creative? What are your strengths? This will help you mentor and lead your team in the most efficient and effective way possible.

Alternative Paths

While some future cyber security employers may require job candidates to have a college or university degree, this is not always necessary. Some C-level executives would much rather see that a candidate or future employee have hands-on experience in security management and the operation, defense, and maintenance of information systems. Having a bachelor’s degree is a wonderful addition, but if you don’t have any level of practical experience or know how, you may have a hard time getting hired. This is why an internship can be invaluable to your academic career. Even if you don’t have a degree from a private or state university, self-directed study may also help you to learn what you need to know.

Getting training in just one cyber security career path may be sufficient for you to get your foot in the door. These include security architect, penetration tester/ethical hacker, security consultant, or another. With the right kind of training, you may even work your way up to your own C-suite office, even if you start with little to no education in an entry-level position such as systems administrator, computer software engineer, database administrator, network engineer, web administrator, security administrator, web developer, IT technician, or network administrator.

Career & Salary

Where Might You Work?

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As a beginning Information Technology (IT) Manager, your average salary is likely to be around the average of $55,000. Your salary could eventually rise to $134,000 at the high end of the scale.

If instead you work as a senior IT support technician, you may work for private companies, some of which are involved with aerospace design. Here, you could find yourself working with varying types of software and hardware. Or you could work for a private contractor located on a military base or in a hospital. In this type of position, you’ll offer server, software, and desktop support. You may also offer other services, such as peripheral planning and support, release management, imaging services, and other duties depending on the requirements of your employer.

Working as a Full Stack Engineer, you would handle project management of various technology applications and processes, making sure to work within project budgets and time frames. If you find work as an information systems security engineer, you’ll maintain an enterprise-level information technology system, including intrusion detection and access control. You’ll offer support for security planning and assessment, risk analysis, and risk management. This security management position means you will help to protect an entire system.

As you can see, where you’ll work really depends on you and where you decide to take your career. The industry is so lacking in qualified personnel that you can pretty much make your career your own.

Career Outlook

Because cyber security managers are in a high-demand security field, they are likely to find a position quickly as long as they have the education required by some employers, some hands-on experience, and knowledge needed to work in this role. Cyber security roles run the gamut: network security administrator, information security specialist, system administrator, penetration tester, security analyst, and others.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that this professional role will grow 10% between 2019 and 2029 - this is higher than it is for all other U.S. occupations. Because corporations and companies are moving their business data to digital platforms, specialists with these skills are needed more and more to ensure that data is safe from black hat hackers and other bad actors. These businesses realized too late that they needed to protect the information they store. This may be decided preemptively, or they may bring in new cyber security protections after they find out about a cyber-threat or their systems were attacked. No matter what circumstances bring you into a company, you’re unlikely to be bored.

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Advancing From Here

Advancing past a cyber security manager position is mostly experience, but you might also be able to boost your career with an increase in your educational credentials. Considering that some employees can reach a management position with nothing but an associate degree, it’s no wonder that many of these employees find that they can’t move into higher-level management or executive positions without a higher level of education. Even if you have already earned a bachelor’s degree, executive positions often require a master’s degree in cyber security or an MBA with a focus on information technology. For those who are looking to move into more technical careers, such as engineering, they too will need to improve their education before they make it into these positions.

However, if you already have a master’s, MBA, or are in an engineering position, and you want to move up or expand your knowledge base; the way to do this is with certifications. It’s almost unfathomable how many cyber security and information technology certifications are out there for anyone who is willing to put in the time to pass the requisite exams. If you simply want to add to your existing skills, certifications are the way to go. You can learn what you want, at whatever speed you want, and add any certification you receive to your resume. It’s as easy as that.

Jobs

  • Computer Hardware Engineers:
    You’ll need a bachelor’s degree for this position. Responsibilities for this position include research and design of computer systems and their components. These specialists develop them and test them to make sure they work as needed.
  • Computer and Information Research Scientists:
    This position requires that applicants hold a master’s degree. They work on inventing and designing new approaches for computing technology. They might also find novel uses for technology that has already been invented.
  • Computer Programmers:
    You’ll need to hold a bachelor’s degree for this job. Computer programmers will write and test code to make sure it allows computer applications and software programs to function the way they are intended to.
  • Computer Network Architects:
    You’ll need to earn a bachelor’s degree to hold this position. Network architects will help design and build data connection networks used by businesses. These include local area networks or LANs, intranets, and wide area networks or WANs.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What do cybersecurity managers do?

Cybersecurity managers use new security tools to perform information security analysts, cybersecurity management, and security clearances on information systems and implement information security measures.

How much do security manager jobs pay?

Security manager jobs pay around $103,000 per year.

What are the typical job duties for cybersecurity managers?

The typical job duties for cybersecurity management include regulating access to information, training staff on proper use of information systems, and establish network security.

What is the job outlook for cybersecurity managers?

Jobs for cybersecurity managers ae expected to increase by 33% by 2030

How much do security manager jobs pay?

Security manager jobs pay around $136,000 per year.

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