<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:19.5pt;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;,serif;mso-fareast-font-family:&quot;Times New Roman&quot;;
mso-fareast-language:EN-IN">At a mile-high level, cybersecurity professionals
are responsible for protecting IT infrastructure, edge devices, networks, and
data. More granularly, they are responsible for preventing data breaches and
monitoring and reacting to attacks. Many have backgrounds as programmers, and
systems or network administrators, and in math and statistics. Those skills are
undoubtedly relevant to the role of an IT security professional, but equally as
critical are the things that aren’t necessarily things that can be taught –
critical thinking, curiosity, and a passion for learning and research. People
from all kinds of backgrounds possess those qualities, so companies shouldn’t
limit themselves to a narrow pool of candidates. Further, hackers are creative
by nature. To outsmart them, security pros need to be, as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p>