Table of Contents
Introduction
If you are passionate about finding loopholes and faults in computer systems, you can make a good living as an ethical hacker. On the other hand, your intentions should be to defend the system rather than to harm it. While ethical and malevolent hackers require the same abilities and tactics to become a hacker, ethical hackers violate the system with authorization, and malicious hackers do so for personal benefit or evil intent.
If you have always wanted to get into cyber security as an ethical hacker, you have probably heard of the Certified Ethical Hacker certification or CEH certification. Obtaining a CEH certification evaluates your network security skills. It is advantageous when transferring into more challenging professional roles, although ethical hacking is one of the top-paying jobs in the world. The CEH certification also provides you with the competitive edge that employers seek. In this article, we will cover career opportunities after earning CEH certification.
If you are thinking about taking the Certified Ethical Hacker exam and want to know how to pass it, IPSpecialist is the best place to learn. Explore our Ethical Hacking Courses now!
The CEH Certification
The CEH certification was created by the International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants, or EC-Council, the world’s most significant cyber security technical certification authority.
Aspirants must pass the CEH test 312-50 to earn the CEH certification. It is a four-hour exam in which candidates must answer 125 multiple-choice questions in four hours. The EC-Council determines the passing mark depending on the exam’s complexity, typically varying from 60 to 85 percent.
Eligibility Criteria
- First, the candidate must have two years of experience working in information security
- The second alternative is to attend an official EC-Council training session
-
Ethical Hacker
An ethical hacker is a professional who enters systems and networks with the owner’s permission and looks for exploitable security flaws. Certified ethical hackers are in high demand nowadays, as businesses confront many sophisticated cyber-attacks.
Ethical Hacker Accountabilities:
- Detecting security issues in the infrastructure
- Performing penetration tests regularly
- Creating a report that can be used to make decisions
- Assuring that security tools are kept up to date
- Increasing staff understanding of the most recent social engineering attacks
-
Junior Penetration Tester
In the cybersecurity field, a junior penetration tester is an entry-level position. Pen testing is a legal and legitimate method of identifying and exploiting holes in an organization’s systems or networks by a junior penetration tester. A penetration tester creates an evaluation report, including potential mitigating risks after running the test.
Junior Penetration Tester Accountabilities
- Defining the penetration test’s objectives and scope
- Methods for conducting a penetration test are being planned and developed
- Perform remote or on-site network or system testing for the client
- Meeting with external or internal users to assess the test’s results
- Analyzing the business impact of the vulnerabilities
- Organize your observations and test results, then write the report
-
Auditor of Information Security
The Information Security Auditor is a specialist employed by corporations to audit and study the efficacy of the IT security posture of the organization. Auditors are responsible for compiling a security report based on their findings, which aids the business in developing methods to protect essential assets from intruders.
Responsibilities of an Information Security Auditor
- Organizational security audit planning, execution, and leadership
- Employees are being interviewed to assess the current security measures
- Make a report on the auditing process
- Vulnerabilities in the network and systems must be identified
- Examine and evaluate the application controls
-
Analyst for Information Security
An information security analyst is a specialist employed by a company who monitors the network and systems of the company. He employs his excellent analytical skills to find and address exploitable holes in the security infrastructure and prepare a report based on his findings.
Information Security Analyst Responsibilities
- Installing firewalls and other security technologies to protect critical data on the network
- To lead the organization in countering the attack and mitigating the associated risks
- Making strategies for event reaction and recovery
- Employees and users will be educated on essential security practices
- Conducting internal and external audits to protect the organization’s overall security
- Keeping abreast of the most recent security developments and standards
-
Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)
The organization’s chief information security officer is a C-level position. The CISO is in charge of the organization’s security infrastructure and the security of vital information assets, and the organization’s IT environment.
The chief information security officer requires strong leadership, communication abilities, and a solid understanding of the IT infrastructure.
Chief Information Security Officer’s Roles and Responsibilities
- Recruiting security personnel
- Ensure collaboration across the organization’s structure at multiple levels
- Organizing campaigns to raise employee awareness
- Determining the organization’s security budget
- Managing organizational risks, ensuring the security of IoTs, and establishing security analytics
Additional Required Skills for CEH Holders in Today’s World
An ethical hacker should have the following skills in addition to a CEH certification:
- Analytical abilities to study and dissect vast amounts of difficult data with care
- Interpersonal and communication skills are required to clearly communicate information to organizational stakeholders, typically in non-technical terms
- You will need problem-solving and logic skills to reverse engineer software and break it down into its component elements
- You will need computer language abilities to deconstruct software code and understand processing logic
- Advanced understanding of networks and programming, security protocols and operating systems, exploits and countermeasures, cryptography and encryption techniques, and telecommunications is required
- Patience to keep attempting to penetrate a system repeatedly, much as a black-hat hacker might by attempting to crack passwords, for example
- Software skills, such as port scanning tools or penetration testing procedures, allow you to learn how to use new tools and apps swiftly
- To “get into the head of a black-hat hacker,” social engineering and psychological insights are required
- Understanding of cybercrime terminology and typical risks on a conceptual level
Prospects for Salary
Ethical hacking experts are in high demand nowadays, particularly among government agencies and those commercial companies that constantly produce highly sensitive data. Furthermore, ethical hackers’ incomes are skyrocketing, and they are paid a hefty salary to ensure system security. Along with the ethical hacker income, there is the potential of working on several personas, which is why millions of people consider it a fantastic career choice.
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment openings for ethical hackers will expand by 36%, about five times faster than the national average, making this one of the most appealing career possibilities.”
According to Payscale, professionals with an Ethical Hacking Certification make an average yearly salary of USD 91,000. Employees working in IT security and infrastructure, cyber security, risk management, intrusion detection, and security testing and auditing earn between USD 83,000 and USD 92,000 per year. Cyber security professionals are in high demand, regardless of location or organization size. As people worldwide are connected to the internet and generate a large amount of data daily, anything can fall into the hands of hackers and be used for personal advantage.
You can better decide to start your career according to the latest salary range of CEH holders in the USA from the following table.
Final Thoughts
Ethical hacking will rise dramatically in the following years as the globe evolves toward a digital economy, with developing firms hiring cybersecurity specialists in the form of CEH to keep their systems safe and out of the hands of black hat hackers.