Joe at Stelfox Cork: My New World of Cybersecurity.

Hello, my name is Joe Hurley and I am an IT Recruitment Consultant at Stelfox Cork. Since my journey began in recruitment, cybersecurity has truly fascinated me. Placing candidates throughout the tech sector, especially cybersecurity in Cork, is a rewarding and exciting area to be involved in.

A few key locations in Ireland have emerged as cybersecurity centres of excellence, one being Cork, with a raft of infosec firms settling in the ‘rebel county’. Since 2018 Cork also is the home of the National Cyber Security Cluster based in CIT

As an area with a 0% unemployment rate and an expected 3.5 million unfilled jobs predicted globally by 2021 it’s an exciting time to be working and for me recruiting in this area. (https://cybersecurityventures.com/jobs/)

Emerging trends in cybersecurity have created a niche sector that attracts confident and proactive candidates.

IT and security issues impact us all, and I have explored five areas of important discussion.

#1 Emails: Phishing and Pharming.

Scams relating to phishing, whereby targeted efforts are undertaken through emails, which resemble a legitimate message, but are, in fact, email scams. This involves an email user clicking on a link, entering details and having their information stolen. (NCSC.GOV.UK)

Pharming is very similar to this; but instead directs users meant for one website to another. Here, data can be accessed and manipulated.
For candidates, it is important to closely monitor online job specs and ads. If it looks too good to be true, then it often is.

#2 Information Security: Public Awareness.

Both the U.S. with National Cybersecurity Awareness Month and the E.U. with CyberSecMonth for October will inform the public of ways they can stay safe and secure online, providing resources and technical knowledge for individuals to protect themselves.

This is the ultimate educational trend in cybersecurity, equipping the population with the skills to investigate what the dangers are, and how best to tackle them.

These efforts are exciting for us at Stelfox Cork, where many of our international clients are from the U.S. and E.U. Being aware of these best practices makes a job candidate stronger for immersion into an organisation.​

#3 Cryptocurrency: EU Cybersecurity Concerns.

E-money options, such as cryptocurrency produce unique forms of InfoSec issues. In recent weeks, EU countries, such as France, have taken action to dismantle cybercrime efforts undertaken by ‘mining botnets’. These have remotely taken over computers and created ‘laundered’ cryptocurrency. ‘Crypto-jacking’ is also a trending topic, where a digital version of mining for coin continues to impact on cybersecurity.

#4 Artificial Intelligence.

The future of AI is set to be one of the most challenging cybersecurity concerns. Artificial Intelligence learns and adapts quickly, and mimics human efforts in technology. (weforum.org)

The industry is very much aware of this impact on the future trends of cybersecurity and is racing against the clock to ensure AI safety.

This is a very wide area and includes protecting online clouds, putting major security barricades into facial recognition software and deep learning (which digitally reproduces the brain structure).

Stelfox Cork is fortunate to have a range of dynamic candidates tackling this issue, graduating from our local universities in areas such as Data Science.

#5 Safety Of Mobile Devices: Future Trends In Cybersecurity.

This cybersecurity issue has the potential to personally affect all smartphone users. As a smartphone holds the most sensitive personal data.

It is important to investigate what apps you install & what information they are gaining access to. This also applies to public WiFi; if information sent is critical and important then the network you use should also support this. (csoonline.com)

Mobile devices are rife with security issues, for some of the issues mentioned earlier like instant messaging phishing and crypto-jacking – by possibly investing in a mobile cover for your anti-virus package and putting thought into what you install, you can go a long way in protecting yourself.

What Have We Learnt?

• Awareness of Phishing and Pharming.
• Public Awareness – find out more about CyberSecMonth @ https://cybersecuritymonth.eu/
• Cryptocurrency dangers.
• Artificial Intelligence – Can it be protected in time?
• Mobile device safety.
• Be careful on public WiFi.
• Only install trusted apps.
• Message phishing & crypto-jacking.
• Anti-virus for your mobile device.

For more information about job opportunities within our client base at Stelfox Cork, please call Joe in Cork at 021 – 4273668

You can also search our live roles here and take your next step in your cybersecurity career.