Rumors of the Death of InfoSec Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
A recent article from an anonymous author, ‘Chadly McCyberton’, claims that cybersecurity jobs no longer exist, and encourages job seekers to give up. We disagree.
If you follow the cybersecurity career and education space, or are active in the infosec community, you’ve likely seen the recent trending article, ‘Cybersecurity is Full‘. The message is simple: 'there are no cybersecurity jobs; give up'. Like most articles of this nature, there are no recommendations provided, no solutions offered, no alternatives suggested. These types of articles are simply about presenting a bleak outlook and spreading despair, without any clear motive — save for the negative impact on the morale of job seekers, students, and aspiring career changers.
The author calls out some massive players so I can understand, though I can not respect in this particular case, the decision to opt for anonymity. The writing is mediocre, the content is less so, but I wont deny the semi-coherent validity of some of the points articulated in the piece: inflated stats, degree mills, expensive training programs and career coaches preying on the desperate, are indeed a problem. However, these issues are not unique to cybersecurity. You'd be hard pressed to find a space that didn't suffer from most of these challenges. I want to be very clear: This does not make them acceptable. At one point in the article, pentesters are compared to NBA players, in an attempt to draw some ill-fitting comparison regarding the likelihood of landing either role. The article has been shared widely, even by respectable security practitioners, folk are hailing Chadly as some brave soul who 'tells it like it is'. At best, this is gatekeeping disguised as advice. Should folks who have spent years learning, training, practicing, studying, interning, applying... just give up? No. One thousand times, no.
McCyberton does not have a single positive thing to say about infosec, and the irony of it all, of course, is that Chad very likely actually works in cybersecurity, making a healthy living as a mid/senior level security professional. Perhaps I'm being overly harsh. In fairness, Chadly does offer one bit of practical advice at the very end: 'Look into goat farming instead.'
I would be no better than Chadly if I ended this without offering any actual, actionable, advice. Here we go:
If you’re looking for work, take a look at these companies, with dedicated cybersecurity career pages and early professional programs
Understand that the industry is evolving, in some ways for the better. These companies — and increasingly others — have committed to eliminating degree requirements for cybersecurity roles
If you want to study and learn about security, you can do it for free. That’s always been our core philosophy at AccessCyber.
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