8 skills needed to be a cyber security expert: Decision making

One of the things that’s absolutely essential to being a good cyber security expert is the ability to make sound decisions quickly.

It doesn’t matter how much studying you have done on the nuts and bolts of cyber security, or how technically able you are to identify any insecurities in a piece of software; if you’re not able to make quick decisions and then act on them in a confident and swift manner, you will be left floundering.

Often, when you are dealing with a cyber security threat, there will be several different course of action available to you, and it will be your job to choose not only the one that offers the best solution and the most protection, but also the one that will be most economical in a financial sense.

If you make the wrong decision, it could not only waste time and allow hackers to get a foothold, but it could also cost your employers a pretty penny. Of course, this would not only be a concern to the company’s future, but also to your career as a cyber security expert.

Improving your decision making skills

There are some basic tasks you can undertake to help you become a better decision maker. To get started, you should take some time every day to look at a problem, working through its pros and cons and the effects of any one course of action, until it becomes second nature. You will get quicker over time.

Another thing you can do is remove emotion and ego from the process, focusing on cold hard facts only.

Sometimes, it always pays to plan for a worst case scenario, so that should something serious happen, you will always be ready to tackle the problem with a cool head.