Cyber Security Technologist

On a cyber security technologist apprenticeship course, you’ll help manage and deal with cyber threats, hazards and risks.

As a cyber security technologist apprentice, you will utilise your understanding of cyber threats, hazards, risks, controls, measures, and mitigations to protect the organisation, its systems, and people.

With the cyber security technologist apprenticeship, you may specialise as a technologist or a risk analyst. In the former role, you’ll learn about hardware and software and how to secure them on a network.

You’ll learn how to evaluate their security vulnerabilities compared to best practices, strengthen their defences, and implement improvements. In addition, you will perform risk assessments in line with cyber security standards and be able to identify vulnerabilities in the latter position.

You’ll also design and execute security policies and incident response plans while learning about the broader cyber security culture and honing your eye for faults and opportunities for improvement.

What you’ll learn

On a cyber security technologist apprenticeship course, you’ll learn to:

• Discover system flaws via a mix of research and hands-on inquiry.
• Analyse and evaluate system, service, or process security hazards and risks. Utilise an external source of risk information or advice relevant to your circumstances (e.g. National Cyber Security Centre) Data from many sources should be combined to provide a more comprehensive picture of cyber threats and hazards.
• Investigate and study common attack techniques, relate them to normal and observable digital system behaviour, and provide suggestions for defending against them. 
• Interpret and demonstrate the application of a vulnerability’s external source (e.g. OWASP, intelligence sharing initiatives, open source)
• Conduct security risk assessments for basic systems without direct supervision and provide only minor suggestions to the company.
• Source and analyse security cases, detailing which risks, vulnerabilities, or hazards have been handled.
• Analyse employer or customer requirements to develop security objectives, and then build a security case that describes the proposed security solutions in the context with reasoned reasoning, taking risks and overall context into account.
• Identify and follow organisational information and cyber security regulations, standards, service level agreements, or other performance objectives.
• Install, configure, and use computer, digital network, and cyber security technology.
• Recommend adjustments to an employer’s or customer’s cyber security posture based on research on potential cyber assaults and threat trends in the future.
• Design, build, test, and debug a network with several subnets and static and dynamic routes to a given design requirement without supervision. Provide evidence that the system meets the design criteria.
• Analyse given security demands (functional and non-functional security criteria that may be offered in a security case) against other system or product design requirements (e.g. usability, cost, size, weight, power, heat, supportability, etc.). Using logic, identify conflicting demands and provide solutions through appropriate trade-offs.
• Create systems following a security scenario while adhering to broad but generally well-defined restrictions. This should include selecting and configuring standard security hardware and software. Provide evidence that the system successfully implemented the security measures described in the security case.
• Create computer code or scripts that meet a particular design need in accordance with your company’s coding standards.
• Create systems that utilise encryption to meet particular security objectives. Create and implement a strategy for managing the encryption keys associated with the given scenario or system.
• Use tools, techniques, and processes to actively prevent breaches in digital system security.
• Conduct cyber-risk assessments against an externally (market) recognised cyber security standard using a recognised risk assessment methodology.
• Determine the cyber security threats that are applicable to a certain environment.
• Create information security policies or processes to handle a set of known hazards, such as those identified via security audit recommendations.
• Create information security guidelines that are limited in scope and take into account cyber security laws and regulations.
• Actively participate in security audits against recognised cyber security standards, perform gap analysis, and provide corrective recommendations.
• Create incident response plans for approval using the incident response governance structures that have been established.
• Create local business continuity plans for approval via the required business continuity governance frameworks.
• Assess security culture using a well-known technique.
• Create and implement a simple security awareness campaign to target a specific aspect of a security culture.
• Recognise and investigate anomalies in observable digital system data structures (including network packet data structures) and digital system behaviours (including protocol behaviours), log file examination, and investigate warnings generated by automated tools, including SIEM technologies.
• Record and report important cyber security information precisely, objectively, and simply, including in written reports within a framework or template.
• Configure digital system monitoring and analysis tools (e.g., SIEM tools) to look for threat and vulnerability information and signs of compromise.
• Conduct an event root cause analysis and provide recommendations to reduce false positives and negatives.
• Manage the local response to minor occurrences using a predetermined procedure.

Entry requirements

You’ll usually need:

• A-levels, a relevant level 3 apprenticeship, other relevant qualifications, relevant experience and/or an aptitude test focusing on functional maths.
• Apprentices without level 2 English and maths will need to achieve this before taking the end-point assessment.

Assessment methods

The End Point Assessment comprises three distinct assessment methods: 

• Professional discussion underpinned by a portfolio
• Scenario demonstrations with questioning 
• Project report

Restrictions and requirements

You’ll need to:

• pass security checks

Duration and level

Apprenticeship standard

More information about the Level 4 Cyber Security Technologist Apprenticeship standard can be found here.

Apprenticeship end point assessment

For more information about the End Point Assessment Process, please read the Institute of Apprenticeships’ information page.