I have completed linux, networking, os and nmap. I am doing Jr penetration tester path in tryhackme. I'am confused, did i miss anything or is it very early doing this. Need some suggestion? please help me out.
I’m currently in high school and trying to decide what I want to study at university. My parents are pushing me towards Computer Science, mainly because they believe it has good career prospects and that I could eventually go into cybersecurity. The problem is that I’m honestly not that interested in coding. I don’t completely hate it, but I’m not someone who enjoys programming, spending hours on GitHub, or building software.
What makes me even more confused is the current AI situation. AI is becoming increasingly capable of writing code and automating parts of software development, while at the same time I keep seeing people saying that CS graduates are struggling to find jobs. So I’m wondering whether CS is still a good and safe degree to choose if I’m already not particularly interested in coding. I don’t want to spend 4 years studying something mainly because my parents consider it a “safe” career, only to find out that the job market has changed.
My parents say I should do CS and then specialize in cybersecurity, but I’m not sure how realistic that is. From what I understand, cybersecurity still requires a strong CS/IT foundation and can involve quite a lot of technical work. I’m also wondering whether cybersecurity is actually more resistant to AI automation or whether it will face similar problems.
So, is CS still worth doing in 2026 if you’re not particularly interested in coding? Is the job market really becoming that difficult, and would you personally recommend CS for someone in my situation? I’m not completely against CS, I’m just genuinely unsure whether it makes sense for me.
Thanks.
Hi everyone,
I recently completed my Bachelor's degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering (ECE) and I'm actively working to launch my career in cybersecurity here in Australia.
I'm currently weighing up my options to gain relevant industry skills and pass HR filters, and I'd love to get feedback from anyone working in local SOCs, IT recruitment, or who has taken these pathways:
TAFE Cert IV in Cyber Security: Is it worth the time investment for someone who already holds a 4-year engineering degree, or is it better suited for people starting without a tech background? Does local industry value it for entry-level roles?
Self-Study Industry Certs (CompTIA Network+, Security+, CySA+): Since I have a solid grounding in hardware and networking concepts from ECE, is self-studying for these vendor-neutral certs a faster and more respected route into entry-level roles (like Helpdesk, SysAdmin, or junior SOC Analyst)?
3.Commercial Training Brokers (e.g., Learning People, Lumify Learn): Are these bootcamps/providers worth the high cost for their career placement support, or is self-study via Professor Messer / Dion Training / TryHackMe preferred?
For those who made the transition from engineering or hardware backgrounds into cyber, what path worked best for getting your foot in the door?
Thank in advance
My company, a Series B cybersecurity startup, is developing some kind of AI/LLM-based pentesting tool using open-source security tools. Before releasing it, they want to test it against an internal CRM I developed.
It sounds like they want to run it directly on the production server. I was asked to arrange a server snapshot, database backup, recovery plan, and notify users that the CRM may be unavailable during testing. The CRM has around 50 active users.
This is my first time dealing with pentesting, but running an automated pentest directly against production seems like a bad idea to me. Again I’m not very familiar with pentesting so I might be missing something.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to create an isolated environment that closely mirrors production, for example by restoring a VM/server snapshot and a copy of the database, and run the pentest there instead?
I’ve asked ChatGPT and Claude about this, but I’m still not sure what the standard real-world approach is, so I’d appreciate input from people who actually work in pentesting or AppSec.
I’ve also asked a few coworkers, but I haven’t really gotten a clear answer. Some of them actually insist that we should just run it on production, which is why I wanted to ask people with more experience in this area.
Is running this kind of automated pentest directly against production normal, or would you generally test against a cloned environment instead?
As the post says looking to find a way to blend my medical experience and knowledge with cyber security. Any advice?