Technology
How to Become a Cybersecurity Analyst
Learn how to monitor, investigate, and respond to cybersecurity threats.
What does a Cybersecurity Analyst do?
Cybersecurity analysts help organizations detect threats, investigate suspicious activity, protect systems, and respond to security incidents.
Skills you'll need
Networking
Understand how devices, applications, and networks communicate.
Why it matters: Understanding how networks communicate is essential for identifying suspicious traffic and investigating security incidents.
Linux
Use the Linux operating system and command line to manage systems.
Why it matters: Linux is widely used in servers and security environments, making basic command-line skills important for analysts.
Security Fundamentals
Understand core cybersecurity concepts, threats, vulnerabilities, and defensive controls.
Why it matters: Security fundamentals provide the foundation for understanding threats, vulnerabilities, authentication, and defensive controls.
SIEM
Collect, search, correlate, and investigate security events and logs.
Why it matters: SIEM platforms allow analysts to collect and investigate security events from across an environment.
Incident Response
Identify, investigate, contain, and respond to security incidents.
Why it matters: Analysts need to understand how organizations investigate and respond to security incidents.
Python
Use Python for programming, automation, data analysis, and AI.
Why it matters: Python can automate repetitive analysis tasks and help analysts work with security data.
Typical learning path
Security Foundations
~40 hoursBuild the networking, operating system, and security fundamentals needed for security analysis.
Skills
Milestone: Explain common network protocols, operating system concepts, and fundamental security principles.
Security Monitoring
~50 hoursLearn how security analysts collect, search, and investigate security events.
Skills
Milestone: Investigate a simulated security event using logs and a SIEM.
Incident Response
~45 hoursLearn the fundamentals of identifying, containing, investigating, and documenting security incidents.
Skills
Milestone: Complete a simulated incident investigation and produce an incident report.
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