5 Cybersecurity Skills Employers Are Looking For In 2024 and Beyond

Focus less on certs and more on skills to succeed in the coming years

We are living in a tough job market right now.

Big tech is no longer the haven it was a few years back, and layoffs are still ongoing

Cybersecurity, while still very much in demand, is not immune to these difficulties, and many experienced professionals are getting laid off

Not to mention, newcomers are finding it increasingly difficult to stand out in a saturated job market

In such an environment, it is essential to make sure you have the skills that will remain in demand in 2024 and beyond

Remember this key point .. Certifications do not make you stand out in Cybersecurity

Instead you should focus on skills that are directly tied to how the markets are changing and where companies are focusing on.

Here are the skills that I would recommend:

1 — AI Security

AI is massively hot right now, and AI security skills are completely lacking within most cybersecurity professionals.

As companies are racing to jump onto the AI and GenAI bandwagon .. they are looking for professionals with the skills to secure these systems.

AI brings unique forms of risks that were not present before, and protecting these systems against these new types of attacks is going to be a red-hot niche in the coming years

To start in AI security, learn about how machine learning works, how attacks like data poisoning can happen, and how to secure data pipelines to make yourself stand out

I made a quick video on this also, which you can refer to:

2 — AI Risk Management

AI Security does not exist in a vacuum

To properly secure AI systems, you need a complete governance framework to be put in place

Multiple standards and regulations are coming out which are going to change how AI systems will be developed in the future

The upcoming EU AI act is going to do for AI what the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) did for Data Privacy

We also have the NIST AI Risk Management (RMF) framework, which will become a benchmark for the industry to develop safe and trustworthy AI

Companies want GRC professionals who know about these frameworks and can tell them how compliant or non-compliant they are with these standards.

I would recommend reading up on the NIST AI RMF and the EU AI Act so you can see the big picture of AI governance from now on

3 — Cloud Security Skills

Cloud Security and AI are directly linked.

As companies adopt AI .. it will drive more adoption of cloud services

AI needs MASSIVE amounts of processing power and storage, which not many companies can afford to host in-house

The Cloud, thus, will form the backbone on which these AI systems are going to be hosted

Cloud Security is a massive field with diverse career paths and certifications present

You can start fresh or leverage your existing cybersecurity experience to decide what path to take

Take a look at the detailed guide I have made below for more details:

4 — Threat Modeling

We live in an application-driven world, and standard vanilla risk assessments no longer cut it.

The days of creating Excel sheets containing IT risks are going obsolete, given the rate at which application changes happen in today’s world

Don't get me wrong .. you still need those types of risk assessments from a governance perspective, BUT they cannot capture the nuances of today’s applications.

Enter: Threat Modeling

Threat Modeling helps us understand how an attacker might exploit our applications and how to prevent those attacks by looking at entry points, trust boundaries, etc.

Numerous methodologies like STRIDE and DREAD are present, which you can use to understand and apply.

You can even use ChatGPT to do basic threat modeling and gain more skills, which I wrote about earlier!

That wraps it up.

To summarize, there are the key skills I would recommend for 2024 and beyond:

1. AI Security
2. AI Risk Management
3. Cloud Security
4. Threat Modeling

Good luck with your Cybersecurity career!

Thanks for reading this.

If you are interested in acing your next Cybersecurity Interview then check out my Free Ebook HERE

Taimur Ijlal is a multi-award-winning, information security leader with over two decades of international experience in cyber-security and IT risk management in the fin-tech industry. Taimur can be connected on LinkedIn or on his YouTube channel “Cloud Security Guy” on which he regularly posts about Cloud Security, Artificial Intelligence, and general cyber-security career advice.