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Cybersecurity Consultant Salary: How Much Do They Make?

Cybersecurity Consultant Salary: How Much Do They Make?

Q: 4. What are the certifications that are needed?

CEH, CCSP, CISSP, CISA, and CISM are highly recognizable and valuable certifications that will add value to you and your resume.

By Hariharann R

Updated on Jun 22, 2022 | 9 min read | 8.2k views

Table of Contents

In recent days, the demand for cyber security and cyber security online courses is significantly in a place where no one can imagine. The reason being the cyber-attacks happening all over the world and the lack of intelligence to capture the threat actors. The major challenge in the Cyber security industry is to find the candidates who are very well experienced in deploying security solutions (SIEM / NDR / EDR / SOAR), highly capable of finding the abnormalities, having strong knowledge of APT threat actors, enhancing the SOC process in addressing the gaps, assessing the organization’s infrastructure, and implementing robust security policies, etc. These are some primary roles and responsibilities of a Cyber Security Consultant. In this article, we will be having a holistic view of Cyber Security Consultants w.r.to many aspects.

You can also check for the top 10 cyber seurity frameworks here!

What Does Cyber Security Consultant Do?

If anyone is looking for an exciting and challenging opportunity in cyber security, I would recommend Cyber Security Consultant as the best one. The main job of a Cyber Security Consultant is to recommend the best security practices to organizations by performing various assessments, fixing the vulnerabilities found in software/systems, etc., and deploying the security controls to identify the gaps inside the network. This job is similar to the Auditor role. At least 2 years in the cyber security domain would be sufficient for security consultant role. In many places, the terms will differ like Information Security consultant, Security Consultant, etc. If any breach activity or compromised activity is detected in the network, you will be contacted immediately, and your technical expertise will come into action.

The roles and responsibilities would differ based on the needs & requirements:

Capable of implementing high security controls for the organization to protect the data, devices, and systems against security attacks.
Need to act as a threat simulator, threat detector, or both.
Strong experienced candidate with in-depth knowledge of system and network levels.
Should assess or audit the high-level people at a managerial level on their knowledge and decision part. Example: Manager should know the steps to be implemented when the organization is under ransomware attack or any security attack.
Reviewing the current architecture of the organization and ensuring everything is protected.
Performing gap assessment on all the devices, security controls, network devices, servers, etc.
Should have knowledge in Incident Response when any true positive incident has happened in the organization.
Periodically reviewing the SLA of the incidents and calculating the response time and resolution time.
Should be able to reduce the dwell time and focus on how we can avoid the same in the coming days.
Able to balance the environment during critical times.
Leadership and people management quality should be there while leading a group of security professionals.
Keen toward multiple technologies and new methodologies should be there.

All the points mentioned above will be helpful when you work as an In-House Consultant or as a Contractor hired to work in Client's place. A good cyber security consultant will learn in many aspects, and in a few years, he can start an independent consulting firm.

Average Cyber Security Consultant Base Salary

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This salary graph chart is prepared by referring various portals and calculated. This may vary depending on the organization, salary pay grade, business needs, resource availability, cyber market demand, etc. The average base salary of a Cyber Security Consultant will be around 10,00,000.00 INR annually.

Cyber Security Consultant Salary

The salary does not depend on a single factor, it is based on the position, technical skills, projects worked, years of experience in the relevant field, location etc.

Based on City Locations

Based on Years of Experience

How to Increase Your Salary as Cyber Security Consultant

Add weightage to your profile by doing cyber security course professional certifications. Below are some lists of certifications that will add value to your professional career.

CEH Course (Certified Ethical Hacker) – This course will be useful when you start your career in Cyber Security.
CCSP Certification (Certified Cloud Security Professional) – This course will be useful when you have 3+ years of experience in the cybersecurity domain.
CISSP Training (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) – you can do this certification when you have 5+ years of experience in the cyber security domain with network background.
CISA Training (Certified Information Systems Auditor) – This certification will be helpful when you want exposure as an auditor perspective.
CISM Training (Certified Information Security Manager) – This certification will be very useful for managerial positions.

Certified Ethical Hacking (CEH)

This certification course is from beginner to intermediate level course offered by EC-Council. You must clear the certification exam to obtain the CEH certification. To apply for the certification, you must have at least 2 years of experience in cyber security or relevant domains like networking and application.

Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP)

This certification course is for experienced candidates who have aggregated 5+ years of professional experience and, in those 3 years, should be in cyber security domain. You must clear the certification exam to obtain the professional certification from ISC.

Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP)

This certification course is for experienced candidates with 5+ years of experience in cyber security. In those 5 years, network experience will also be considered. You must clear the certification exam to obtain the professional certification from ISC. While applying for this certification exam, you may need to submit your proof of professional experience.

Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA)

This certification is for candidates looking for an opportunity in the Auditing domain. You must clear the certification exam to obtain the professional certification from ISACA. This certification is globally recognized and improves one’s security posture.

Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)

This certification is for the people who are looking to move or looking to display their skills at managerial perspective. This is an advanced certification where the person will have strong knowledge and skills in managing the cyber security program of an organization. At least five years of work experience in cyber security field is needed with a minimum of three years of experience in people management. You must clear the certification exam to obtain the professional certification from ISACA.

Top Companies Hiring Cyber Security Consultant

There is a huge scope for Security consultant in the big four companies in India, which are

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Private Limited.
PwC India.
KPMG India Private Limited.
Ernst & Young India.

Apart from that, Cyber Security Consultant position has a high demand in MNCs as well like

Booz Allen Hamilton
Jacobs
Accenture
AT&T (Communications)
IBM
Amazon
Capgemini
Tata Consultancy Services
Infosys
Wipro
Tech Mahindra
Cognizant Technology Solutions
HCL Technologies
Zoho
Tata Communications

Steps to Become a Cyber Security Consultant

As per the recent statistics report, the cyber security consultant position has created an enormous demand in the cyber security market. The industry is looking for potentially important candidates to work on in-house projects and in dedicated client or offshore sites who can manage things individually. Instead of hiring multiple people, most companies are looking for a single candidate to save the cost.

Below are the pre-requisites that are to be satisfied:

Should have a bachelor’s degree in Computer science, Information Technology, Information Security Related, or any other relevant course with a decent grade.
Should have a minimum work experience of 3-5 years in Information Security domain that can be of any job position at initial stage.
As mentioned above, you can do professional certifications and should get certified by highly recognizable institutes.
Should know how to handle the people who have technical / non-technical knowledge.
Should have leadership and people management skills.
Should have practical exposure to the latest cyber attacks on how to simulate them and how to protect the organizations from those attacks.

Potential Cyber Security Consultant should have the below-mentioned skills

Programming Knowledge
Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing
Cyber Threat Intelligence with the knowledge of APTs
Common and Latest Cyber Attacks with the remediations.
Networking knowledge.
Understanding of Governance, Risk, and Compliance
Security Controls and Procedures

Types of Job Opportunities Available in the Cyber Market

In-house firm

This job is a full-time and permanent job where the candidate must satisfy the above-mentioned roles and responsibilities for that organization.

Consulting firm

This job is like a contract-based or time-based job where the candidates will be outsourced to any organization and should work for them by satisfying their needs and requirement.

Freelance

This is a temporary job where the candidate will work based on their own interest.

Conclusion

In this article, we have seen the demand for Cyber Security consultant roles and what are the salary standards that industry is offering. As the world is adopting advanced technologies and stuff, the demand and growth for security consultant profile would get bigger and bigger. With the required skills and experience, you can find yourself in the top position after a few years if your quality of work and deliverable time are excellent. All you need to do is update yourself and learn frequently.