Taimur Ijlal
Let me be straight with you .. we are in tough times nowadays and you cannot afford to be complacent as a Cybersecurity professional
The Tech industry is experiencing a serious slowdown in 2023 which has been carried over from 2022
Dozens of extremely skilled people are now in the market looking for jobs and Cybersecurity jobs have serious competition
You need to be at the top of your game in your job and out of it. Creating a personal cybersecurity brand AND learning something that sets you apart from the competition
One of the best skills you can learn in cybersecurity is Python — one of the most popular programming languages in the world
Yes it does not matter if you are a pen-tester or a well paid CISO, Python will come in handy at all levels
Here are a few reasons which I believe there is NO excuse for a cybersecurity pro not to learn Python in 2023
1 — It is popular AND easy
These two words usually do not go together when it comes to programming languages but Python is unique in this regard. It is extremely simple to understand and learn which is one of the reasons for its popularity
With tools like ChatGPT that can literally write Python code, debug and explain the same .. there is really nothing stopping you from starting to learn it today
Source: ChatGPT2 — Massive number of integrations and libraries
Think of a use case in security and I guarantee there is a python library or code already written for that
It’s massive libraries cover everything from encryption, network scanning, web scraping and on and on. You can supercharge your cybersecurity knowledge and tackle all sorts of security challenges
It is also able to integrate via APIs with other technologies like ChatGPT ( more on that later). If you have a huge cybersecurity Eco-system then Python can help you make all of them talk to each other.
It is also great for automating repetitive tasks and creating custom scripts that can save you huge amounts of time for tasks like log analysis, vulnerability scanning, incident response .. the possibilities are endless !
3 — It has crazy support for AI and Machine learning
AI and Machine Learning is changing the world and Python has crazy amount for support with libraries like TensorFlow and Scikit-learn.
These are two very popular machine learning libraries that can be used for a variety of cybersecurity tasks like threat detection, vulnerabilities assessments and so on.
Just getting a high level understanding of these libraries will give you big heads up and allow you to better assess newer cybersecurity products that boast the “powered by AI” logo
If you like ChatGPT then OpenAI have an amazing Python API library present that allows you to programmatically access the ChatGPT model and use it for all sorts of cool use cases !
Source: 4 — You can monetize this skill !
Monetizing your cybersecurity skills outside your 9 to 5 job is something I have written about a LOT which you can check out here
Cybersecurity + Python skills are a lethal combination which can be monetized in a variety of ways:Teaching / Writing: Python skills in cybersecurity are a unique niche which you can monetize by creating Udemy courses, books or even a Youtube channel ! There is no shortage of professionals wanting to learn about this skill so think about what works for you and start your journey.
Freelancing: As your skills improve you can offer your services on websites like Fiverr or Upwork and help in Python related work from a cybersecurity angle.
Consulting: Once you have projects under your belt, you can even think about doing this full time and offer specialized consulting services to companies and help them solve Python related problems in the cybersecurity domain. Some serious money can be made here once your brand is established. I would suggest starting with 1 and 2 first before attempting this
I hope you found this useful and realize that in 2023, there is no reason for you not to learn Python. It is easy and popular and there are a billion free Youtube videos present on how to learn it. Good luck on your Python journey !
No comments:
Post a Comment