After numerous ransomware attacks such as Petya and WannaCry made headlines in the past few days, the job market is witnessing a high demand for cybersecurity graduates. To protect their company data from malware, numerous companies are said to be looking to hire experts on cyber security.
"The demand for cyber-security specialists has shot up so much after the recent spate of cyber-attacks that six companies have already rolled out about 30 pre-placement offers to batch 2018," the Economic Times quoted Digvijaysinh Rathod, training and placement officer at Gujarat Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, as saying.
Industry giants such as Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, EY and Axis Bank are said to have made about 70 offers to M. Tech in Cyber Security & Incident Response and M.Sc. in Digital Forensics & Information Assurance graduates from the 2017 batch.
Confirming the high demand for cyber security professionals, Rajkamal Vempati, head of human resources at Axis Bank, explained that the bank has increased the number of professionals it has hired and is also training its existing employees on cyber threats and ways to tackle them. Due to the high demand, companies are also ready to shell out higher packages to land these professionals.
"For campus recruits, we pay around Rs 7 lakh. For hiring in lateral roles, these professionals usually command a 15-20% premium," said Vempati.
EY also said that hiring cyber security experts has become a necessity now. "Getting cyber-security specialists has never been more important. We have a team of around 450 and will hire 50-60% more in next one year," Neville M Dumasia, deputy advisory leader at EY India, told ET.
Meanwhile, Deloitte explained that the firm doesn't really choose employees right out of college and prefers to hire cyber security experts who have a few years of experience and are "certified in ethical hacking."
Petya ransomware created quite some frenzy worldwide a few days ago by locking thousands of computers. Before that, ransomware WannaCry spread to nearly 100 countries and locked down lakhs of computers and the files in it. India was said to be one of the countries affected by the ransomware.
