BENGALURU: As the cybersecurity landscape continues to evolve, firms are increasingly onboarding cybersecurity professionals with AI skills to combat emerging threats and mitigate risks.
AI is not only transforming traditional attack vectors but also playing a vital role in neutralising potential dangers. Among the most in-demand skills in cybersecurity are security architects, security engineers, incident responders, and fraud analysts.
“The threat landscape has evolved from simple malware to sophisticated attacks like ransomware.The rise of GenAI has enabled threat actors to execute evasive, unique, and destructive zero-day attacks. With the expanding attack surface and evolving threats, proficiency in network security, incident response, cloud security, AI-driven threat detection, and regulatory compliance is essential,” said Kunal Ruvala, SVP and general manager at cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks India.
Sowmya Vedarth, partner at Deloitte India, said, as digitisation and security threats increase, the nature of skills is rapidly evolving, shifting from monitoring and testing to prevention and cyber defense roles. Digital trust will require a wide range of roles that combine functional and security responsibilities with technical skills. “The US and developed markets pay higher for cyber skills. However, with the rise of GCCs, we are seeing a demand from professionals for faster migration of both proactive defence and monitoring jobs to India,” she said.
RV Raghu, ISACA ambassador and director at Versatilist Consulting India, said digital trust will require a wide variety of roles with a blend of functional and security roles matched to technical skills. “Both defensive roles such as security engineers and devsec ops engineers and offensive roles such as risk and fraud analyst and incident responders will be in demand,” he said.
Raghu said certifications such as ISACA’s CISM (certified information security manager) and certified data privacy solutions engineer provided a 10% increase in salaries and a 11% jump in market value for certified professionals, according to data from a recent Foote Partners survey released in Q2 2024.