This month Tesco Bank was forced to halt online payments for current account customers after cash was snaffled from 20,000 accounts.
Thankfully, all of the bank’s customers will be fully refunded but the incident shows just how important it is to have a frontline cyber defence made up of top notch IT professionals.
So let’s meet some of the guardians who are tasked with keeping our online lives safe and secure.
Chief Security Officer
Also known as Chief Technology Officer, this is the head honcho, numero uno and indisputable top cat.
Not only do they bring technical expertise to the party, but their experience and all-round business know-how allows them to safeguard and advance information technology in line with the long-term ambitions of their company.
Lead Software Security Engineer
Much of the work in this role will involve passing on knowledge and skills to an army of security engineers.
This will mean designing secure code and applications, ensuring the soundness of existing systems or creating brand new security tools to keep pace with the ever-evolving and awfully wicked ways of cyber crooks.
IT Security Analyst
Security analysts or managers weigh up potential security risks, before developing ways to deal with breaches. Among the tools in their belts are firewalls and encryptions as well as audit systems that can red flag abnormal activity.
Ethical hackers
There aren’t many jobs where you can play the baddie and goodie at the same time.
Basically, an ethical hacker is employed by a company to do everything a criminal hacker would do in order to expose any security weaknesses in their system.
Their findings will shape any changes that are needed, from simple password checking to software development.
Heaven help the CEO who’s been using a password based on the name of the pet whose picture is beside their PC!
Computer investigators
This is where life in IT gets really exciting. Investigators can work in-house for corporations or as consultants, liaising with the police and security enforcement agencies.
No two days will be the same, with duties that can move from detailed analysis of data-related cyber crime to working with the police to trace mobile phone records and identify links to suspects.
Think of it as The IT Crowd meets NCIS!
Fancy a job as a crime fighter? For all the best IT roles visit s1jobs