• Find a bachelor's degree




    Bachelors Degree Center is an advertising-supported site. Featured or trusted partner programs and all school search, finder, or match results are for schools that compensate us. This compensation does not influence our school rankings, resource guides, or other editorially-independent information published on this site.

Is a cyber secu­ri­ty degree worth it? A cyber­se­cu­ri­ty degree can help some­one enter into a career that can take them very far. The impor­tance of net­work secu­ri­ty and cyber secu­ri­ty means a con­stant and still grow­ing demand for cyber secu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­als exists.

That occu­pa­tion­al out­look means that any­one with a cyber­se­cu­ri­ty degree will always have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to find employ­ment. In fact, the impor­tance of net­work secu­ri­ty and cyber secu­ri­ty is so great, that some­one with their degree and an entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it can do well with start­ing their own busi­ness in the cyber secu­ri­ty field.

What Is Cyber Security and Why Is So Important?

What is cyber secu­ri­ty? Cyber secu­ri­ty is a broad range of dis­ci­plines, prac­tices, tech­nolo­gies, and meth­ods root­ed in com­put­er sci­ence and specif­i­cal­ly designed for the pro­tec­tion of net­work and data sys­tems. It is impos­si­ble to under­state the impor­tance of net­work secu­ri­ty and cyber secu­ri­ty in the mod­ern age.

Because the term cyber secu­ri­ty rep­re­sents such a large spec­trum of prac­tices, it allows for a lot of maneu­ver­abil­i­ty for those who want to pur­sue a career in cyber secu­ri­ty. The need for all peo­ple and busi­ness­es to secure impor­tant data and net­works from attacks and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties answers the ques­tion of is cyber secu­ri­ty a good career.

When ask­ing is cyber secu­ri­ty a good career, it is impor­tant to note that cyber secu­ri­ty is not some­thing set in stone. Some­one with a cyber­se­cu­ri­ty degree can con­tin­ue to grow and branch out.

Con­tin­u­ing learn­ing in the field is also impor­tant, which can also allow some­one to stick out above oth­er appli­cants when look­ing for a posi­tion. Tying a par­tic­u­lar type of cyber secu­ri­ty to a spe­cif­ic niche or indus­try can also work well for a cyber secu­ri­ty professional.

Is a cyber secu­ri­ty degree worth it in the long run? With so much scal­a­bil­i­ty and poten­tial, a cyber secu­ri­ty degree can offer a grad­u­ate both an imme­di­ate return on their invest­ment as well as future returns.

It is also impor­tant to dif­fer­en­ti­ate a cyber secu­ri­ty degree from a com­put­er sci­ence degree. With com­put­er sci­ence vs cyber­se­cu­ri­ty degree options, appli­cants should under­stand that one, com­put­er sci­ence, deals with com­put­ers and com­put­er sys­tems in gen­er­al. A cyber secu­ri­ty degree will pre­pare some­one for secur­ing, mon­i­tor­ing, and polic­ing com­put­er sys­tems and networks.

Why Is Cyber Security Important? Why Is Network Security Important?

To under­stand why a cyber­se­cu­ri­ty degree comes with so much ver­sa­til­i­ty and oppor­tu­ni­ties, it is impor­tant to under­stand why is net­work secu­ri­ty impor­tant. Peo­ple, busi­ness­es, gov­ern­ments, and prac­ti­cal­ly any­body doing any­thing these days rely heav­i­ly on IT systems.

Pro­tect­ing these sys­tems, the net­works that con­nect them, and the data they con­tain is a high pri­or­i­ty. A data breach or exploit can expose per­son­al and finan­cial data or ren­der impor­tant sys­tems inop­er­a­ble. Peo­ple and insti­tu­tions need pro­fes­sion­als who under­stand how these sys­tems work to help them pre­vent cost­ly or dis­as­trous outcomes.

What Is the Difference Between Cyber Security and Network Security?

Terms like cyber secu­ri­ty, net­work secu­ri­ty, IT secu­ri­ty, and infor­ma­tion secu­ri­ty can all show up mean­ing the same thing or entire­ly dif­fer­ent things. Gen­er­al­ly, there is a dif­fer­ence between cyber secu­ri­ty and net­work security.

In prac­tice, how­ev­er, it is pos­si­ble for the two terms to show up inter­change­ably. Still, it is a good idea to under­stand how the terms dif­fer from each oth­er. In this way, an appli­cant can look at a job descrip­tion and know auto­mat­i­cal­ly which type of appli­cant a busi­ness is look­ing for.

Cyber secu­ri­ty aims to defend a person’s or organization’s data, com­put­er sys­tems, or net­works from ille­gal access and dam­age. Net­work secu­ri­ty specif­i­cal­ly deals with pro­tect­ing a person’s or organization’s net­work infra­struc­ture from unau­tho­rized access or data manipulation.

In most cas­es, cyber secu­ri­ty acts as a sub­set of infor­ma­tion secu­ri­ty, and net­work secu­ri­ty acts as a sub­set of cyber secu­ri­ty. So, when it comes to net­work secu­ri­ty vs cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, it’s pos­si­ble to think of net­work secu­ri­ty as a spe­cial­iza­tion of cyber secu­ri­ty. As stat­ed, net­work secu­ri­ty vs cyber­se­cu­ri­ty is not always an issue as a busi­ness look­ing for a net­work secu­ri­ty spe­cial­ist may well ask for a cyber secu­ri­ty spe­cial­ist and vice versa.

How Do I Find the Best Schools for Cyber Security Degrees? How Important is Accreditation?

When search­ing for the best schools and degree pro­grams for cyber secu­ri­ty, poten­tial appli­cants will have to con­sid­er a num­ber of things. One of the main selec­tion fac­tors will have to do with the accred­i­ta­tion sta­tus of the school or pro­gram in question.

Nar­row­ing a search by accred­i­ta­tion accom­plish­es sev­er­al things all at once. Since accred­i­ta­tion from a respect­ed and known accred­it­ing group implies adher­ence to stan­dards and qual­i­ty, choos­ing a pro­gram or school with an active accred­i­ta­tion sta­tus helps to deter­mine which pro­grams are worth an applicant’s time.

What Makes Accreditation So Important?

Accred­i­ta­tion is vol­un­tary, which means an insti­tu­tion or pro­gram will sub­mit their cours­es for eval­u­a­tion from an inde­pen­dent group. That group will con­sist of edu­ca­tion­al peers and that group will make sure that the sub­mit­ted insti­tu­tion or pro­gram adheres to qual­i­ty standards.

Accred­i­ta­tion is not one and done. A school or pro­gram must con­tin­u­al­ly meet stan­dards, and when those stan­dards change, that school or pro­gram must update its cours­es to reflect them. To gain an accred­it­ed sta­tus and keep it, the school or pro­gram must com­ply with all stan­dards, under­go reviews and eval­u­a­tions, and even sub­mit to unan­nounced site visits.

If a school or pro­gram does not meet or exceed stan­dards, or if they fall out of com­pli­ance, they lose their sta­tus. That is why it is impor­tant for appli­cants to ensure the accred­it­ed sta­tus of a pro­gram they are review­ing is current.

Employ­ers, espe­cial­ly employ­ers of peo­ple with a high­ly tech­ni­cal skillset like cyber secu­ri­ty, will want appli­cants with accred­it­ed degrees. Because the indus­try often sets or helps to set the stan­dards for these pro­grams, an accred­it­ed cyber­se­cu­ri­ty degree will let them know that the appli­cant has the basic skills and knowl­edge to work in their sectors.

Under­stand that accred­i­ta­tion is not just about the cyber­se­cu­ri­ty degree pro­gram itself. Accred­i­ta­tion involves the staff, fac­ul­ty, teach­ing meth­ods, and goals of the institution.

Where Do I Start with Cybersecurity Accreditation?

A good place to start with cyber­se­cu­ri­ty accred­i­ta­tion is the region­al accred­i­ta­tion of a col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty. Region­al accred­i­ta­tion is grant­ed by one of the des­ig­nat­ed accred­it­ing bod­ies cho­sen the US Dept. of Edu­ca­tion. These six accred­it­ing groups grant accred­i­ta­tion sta­tus to the col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties in their spe­cif­ic areas of influ­ence, hence the term region­al accreditation.

When look­ing at a col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty, that accred­i­ta­tion sta­tus should count as a base­line require­ment before any oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions. Region­al accred­i­ta­tion is the most rec­og­nized type, which can make it eas­i­er to trans­fer cred­its between schools and make it eas­i­er to obtain finan­cial aid.

How­ev­er, region­al accred­i­ta­tion tends to only go to a school as a whole. That is to say, the accred­it­ed school can be an excel­lent one, but the cyber­se­cu­ri­ty degree pro­gram offered by that school may not always rep­re­sent the best an appli­cant can find. Because of this, there’s also spe­cial­ized accreditation.

Spe­cial­ized accred­i­ta­tion comes from an accred­it­ing group that typ­i­cal­ly con­sists of busi­ness, pro­fes­sion­als, and mem­bers with­in an indus­try or dis­ci­pline. These groups can set stan­dards that an entire indus­try will strive to adhere to. That is why spe­cial­ized accred­i­ta­tion often falls under the cat­e­go­ry of nation­al accreditation.

Spe­cial­ized cyber­se­cu­ri­ty accred­i­ta­tion is very impor­tant because cyber­se­cu­ri­ty stan­dards include very strict pro­to­cols and tech­niques. These stan­dards are main­ly set by the Nation­al Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Cen­ter of Excel­lence or NCCoE. Oth­er gov­ern­ment-spon­sored accred­i­ta­tion groups include the Nation­al Cen­ters of Aca­d­e­m­ic Excel­lence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD, CAE-CO).

Non-gov­ern­men­tal accred­it­ing can come from the Accred­i­ta­tion Board for Engi­neer­ing and Tech­nol­o­gy (ABET). If an appli­cant finds that a school or pro­gram has accred­i­ta­tion but does not know any­thing about the accred­it­ing group, they can eas­i­ly look them up and research whether that group offers ben­e­fits to the edu­ca­tion­al path they are inter­est­ed in pursuing.

In most cas­es, the Nation­al Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Cen­ter of Excel­lence con­sists of mem­ber groups or Nation­al Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Excel­lence Part­ners (NCEPs). If an accred­it­ing group is in a part­ner­ship with NCCoE, they are typ­i­cal­ly worth it.

What Are the Different Types of Cybersecurity Degrees?

As cyber­se­cu­ri­ty con­tains a broad range of spe­cial­iza­tions, it makes sense that there are sev­er­al types of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty degrees. When choos­ing a cyber secu­ri­ty under­grad­u­ate degree, an appli­cant should look at what that edu­ca­tion will include and what types of spe­cial­iza­tions the cur­ricu­lum will allow.

Appli­cants should also pay atten­tion to the cyber secu­ri­ty degree require­ments. The cyber secu­ri­ty degree require­ments can vary depend­ing on the type of cyber secu­ri­ty under­grad­u­ate degree the appli­cant wants to pur­sue. For exam­ple, work­ing with health­care sys­tems may come with very dif­fer­ent cyber secu­ri­ty degree require­ments than work­ing with gen­er­al systems.

In addi­tion, a cyber secu­ri­ty under­grad­u­ate degree can have sev­er­al dif­fer­ent names depend­ing on the path an appli­cant takes. For exam­ple, it is pos­si­ble to find degrees list­ed as:

  • Com­put­er Forensics
  • Cyber Secu­ri­ty
  • Cyber­crime and Fraud Investigation
  • Infor­ma­tion Assurance
  • Infor­ma­tion Security
  • Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems Security
  • Net­work Security

Each of these degree types can rep­re­sent a dif­fer­ent cyber­se­cu­ri­ty con­cen­tra­tion. Each of these degree types can also rep­re­sent a need for dif­fer­ent cyber secu­ri­ty degree require­ments and a dif­fer­ent cyber secu­ri­ty edu­ca­tion require­ment for each.

Can I Earn a Cybersecurity Degree Online?

Some of the best cyber secu­ri­ty under­grad­u­ate pro­grams are found online. Many cyber secu­ri­ty edu­ca­tion pro­grams actu­al­ly offer a lot more ben­e­fit when tak­en online because of the nature of the degree itself.

In addi­tion, an online cyber secu­ri­ty bach­e­lor’s degree is just as rel­e­vant as a degree earned in a more tra­di­tion­al set­ting. As with choos­ing any school or pro­gram, find­ing the best cyber secu­ri­ty under­grad­u­ate pro­grams online will require appli­cants to pay close atten­tion to the program’s rep­u­ta­tion and accred­i­ta­tion status.

Pric­ing or tuition costs for online pro­grams can vary just as much as equiv­a­lent col­lege or uni­ver­si­ty pro­grams. The cheap­est online cyber secu­ri­ty degree can still hold a lot of val­ue if it meets a cyber secu­ri­ty edu­ca­tion require­ment set by a known and respect­ed accred­i­ta­tion group.

Do I Need Certifications or Licenses in Cybersecurity?

Cyber secu­ri­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions vary wide­ly. Grad­u­ates do not nec­es­sar­i­ly need any cyber secu­ri­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions, but hav­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion can help a lot in their careers. A cyber­se­cu­ri­ty grad­u­ate cer­tifi­cate alone shows that some­one has the edu­ca­tion to at least start with an entry-lev­el posi­tion or as an assis­tant to man­age­ment or supervisors.

How­ev­er, many indus­tries may want appli­cants to have cyber secu­ri­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions that show their com­pe­tence for a par­tic­u­lar spe­cial­iza­tion or aspect of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty. For exam­ple, many who enter into the net­work secu­ri­ty field should have cer­ti­fi­ca­tions that show they are com­pe­tent and con­fi­dent with admin­is­tra­tion of a company’s net­work­ing equip­ment and sys­tems. Hav­ing cer­tain cyber secu­ri­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions also boosts a resume as well as the val­ue of a poten­tial employ­ee in the eyes of employers.

For exam­ple, for any­one work­ing in net­work secu­ri­ty, hav­ing the prop­er Cis­co cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is some­times a neces­si­ty. Many net­works rely par­tial­ly or com­plete­ly on Cis­co Sys­tems and their equip­ment, so they will want appli­cants who have the prop­er Cis­co cer­ti­fi­ca­tions to work with those systems.

Appli­cants may earn some cer­ti­fi­ca­tions dur­ing the course of their cyber secu­ri­ty edu­ca­tion. Grad­u­at­ing with cer­tain cer­ti­fi­ca­tions in hand can put an appli­cant way ahead of the pack when it is time to choose a career path. Some cer­ti­fi­ca­tions worth con­sid­er­ing imme­di­ate­ly can include:

Many oth­er types of cer­ti­fi­ca­tions exist for those who want to take the next step beyond their degree.

A good rule of thumb for appli­cants is to always con­tin­ue learn­ing and improv­ing. Some cyber secu­ri­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions are more impor­tant than oth­ers depend­ing on the indus­try or job type. An appli­cant may have to pay for train­ing and test­ing to earn these cer­ti­fi­ca­tions. How­ev­er, there are also free online secu­ri­ty cours­es with cer­tifi­cates and cyber secu­ri­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion online free to any­one who goes through the process.

Appli­cants should spend some time with any free online secu­ri­ty course with cer­tifi­cates they can find. Those cer­ti­fi­ca­tions can help them improve their knowl­edge, espe­cial­ly if they cov­er a niche subject.

A cyber­se­cu­ri­ty grad­u­ate cer­tifi­cate can often get some­one into the door of a com­pa­ny, but adding more cyber secu­ri­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tions can help boost some­body into posi­tions that require some­one with a lit­tle more knowl­edge of a par­tic­u­lar field. If an appli­cant finds a cyber secu­ri­ty cer­ti­fi­ca­tion online free of charge, they should def­i­nite­ly obtain it if it fits with their goals.

What Are Some Different Types of Careers in Cybersecurity?

There are a tremen­dous amount of cyber secu­ri­ty jobs out there. In fact, a glance at a cyber secu­ri­ty careers list may even seem a lit­tle over­whelm­ing for appli­cants who do not know how to nar­row it down to what they are look­ing for. Cyber secu­ri­ty jobs exist in every indus­try, sec­tor, and ver­ti­cal. Basi­cal­ly, if some­one makes use of a com­put­er, net­work, or inter­net, then they have a need for a cyber secu­ri­ty professional.

Cyber secu­ri­ty jobs and net­work secu­ri­ty jobs often over­lap as well. Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, there are sev­en large cat­e­gories of cyber secu­ri­ty jobs and net­work secu­ri­ty jobs. With­in these cat­e­gories there are many, many poten­tial occu­pa­tions. Some exam­ples of cyber secu­ri­ty jobs and net­work secu­ri­ty jobs include:

  • Cyber crime investigator
  • Cyber instruc­tor
  • Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty management
  • Foren­sic investigator
  • Net­work oper­a­tions specialist
  • Secu­ri­ty architect
  • Soft­ware developer
  • Sys­tem administrator
  • Sys­tems developer
  • Sys­tems secu­ri­ty analyst
  • Tech­ni­cal sup­port specialist

This list can go on for a while as there are a tremen­dous amount of cyber secu­ri­ty jobs. When look­ing at a cyber secu­ri­ty careers list, appli­cants will have to drill down to their core exper­tise to find the types of employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties that fit their knowledge.

A pop­u­lar choice for many cyber secu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­als is cyber­se­cu­ri­ty man­age­ment. Even under the umbrel­la term of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty man­age­ment, there are a num­ber of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty man­age­ment jobs. Appli­cants may also see these oppor­tu­ni­ties list­ed as cyber­se­cu­ri­ty man­age­ment and pol­i­cy jobs.

Under­stand that cyber­se­cu­ri­ty man­age­ment can mean a man­age­ment posi­tion for any of the mul­ti­tude of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty jobs in gen­er­al. So, when it says cyber­se­cu­ri­ty man­age­ment and pol­i­cy, or cyber­se­cu­ri­ty man­age­ment jobs, appli­cants should still drill down to their own core com­pe­ten­cies to find the man­age­ment posi­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties that fit their skills.

What Kind of Salary Can I Make with a Cybersecurity Degree?

It is not always easy to pin down a gen­er­al cyber­se­cu­ri­ty degree salary. Cyber and net­work secu­ri­ty salary can vary wide­ly depend­ing on the nature of the job, where the appli­cant applies, the com­pa­ny the appli­cant will work for, and the type of job.

When it comes to cyber secu­ri­ty degree salary and net­work secu­ri­ty salary, the title of the job can mat­ter a great deal as well. Even in cas­es where some­one per­forms vir­tu­al­ly the same duty as some­one else, the title of the posi­tion can mean a big dif­fer­ence in salary.

An easy exam­ple of this is to con­sid­er that a cyber secu­ri­ty degree salary and a net­work secu­ri­ty degree salary can vary great­ly if both peo­ple with these titles worked in the same place. It would depend on how much val­ue the employ­er places on the nature of the degree.

A cyber secu­ri­ty spe­cial­ist who presents them­selves as a net­work secu­ri­ty spe­cial­ist may earn a less­er net­work secu­ri­ty salary. At a dif­fer­ent busi­ness, a net­work secu­ri­ty salary may offer more mon­ey because that busi­ness puts a high­er val­ue on net­work­ing secu­ri­ty spe­cial­ists than gen­er­al cyber­se­cu­ri­ty specialists.

Nev­er­the­less, there are some salary fig­ures offered for cyber secu­ri­ty as a gen­er­al field. Accord­ing to Glass­door, the aver­age cyber secu­ri­ty salary sits at $91.4k. PayScale lists the aver­age pay for some­one with the title of cyber secu­ri­ty ana­lyst as $75.7k. Indeed shows the aver­age hourly rates for sev­er­al posi­tions under the cyber secu­ri­ty cat­e­go­ry, and those rates range from $13/hour to $54/hour.

This all goes to show that cyber secu­ri­ty salaries can vary wide­ly and wild­ly. Once again, posi­tions and titles can also fac­tor into salary offers. As with most pro­fes­sions, expe­ri­ence can play an impor­tant role as well. For entre­pre­neurs, salaries can depend entire­ly on what kind of ser­vice they are offer­ing and how they set their pric­ing for those services.

Are There Any Professional Organizations for Cybersecurity Professionals?

As a large and still grow­ing pro­fes­sion, cyber secu­ri­ty has quite a few pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions. Join­ing a pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion not only makes a lot of sense, but it is some­thing that stu­dents and grad­u­ates should con­sid­er essen­tial to their careers. A pro­fes­sion­al cyber­se­cu­ri­ty group or orga­ni­za­tion offers a tremen­dous amount of val­ue by way of oppor­tu­ni­ties and perks that not found elsewhere.

Maybe most impor­tant­ly, a pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion allows for the expan­sion of someone’s peer, per­son­al, and pro­fes­sion­al net­work. The abil­i­ty to net­work with peers, indus­try lead­ers, and oth­ers in the field is one of the most valu­able ben­e­fits that come from join­ing a pro­fes­sion­al network.

Often, these orga­ni­za­tions con­sist of peo­ple who make deci­sions con­cern­ing infor­ma­tion and cyber secu­ri­ty at local, state, nation­al, and some­times even inter­na­tion­al lev­els. This means it is pos­si­ble to find new oppor­tu­ni­ties, offers, and edu­ca­tion with­in a group long before these things become com­mon knowledge.

Since cyber secu­ri­ty is a flu­id indus­try with changes hap­pen­ing all the time, it is impor­tant to stay on top of those changes. A pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tion helps with this in sev­er­al ways. Some pro­fes­sion­al cyber secu­ri­ty orga­ni­za­tions include:

  • Cen­ter for Inter­net Secu­ri­ty – CIS
  • Inter­na­tion­al Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems Secu­ri­ty Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Con­sor­tium — (ISC)2
  • Nation­al Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion — NCSA
  • The SANS Institute
  • Women in Cyber­se­cu­ri­ty – WiCyS

Many oth­er cyber­se­cu­ri­ty orga­ni­za­tions exist as well. Both stu­dents and grad­u­ates would do well to take a look at the orga­ni­za­tion to see which will fit their goals and join one or more of them as soon as possible.

Relat­ed Rankings: 

25 Best Bach­e­lor’s in Cyber Secu­ri­ty Degree Programs

15 Best Online Bach­e­lor’s in Cyber Security

10 Fastest Online Bach­e­lor’s in Cyber Security

10 Most Afford­able Online Bach­e­lor’s in Cyber Security