Cybersecurity is puzzle-solving with real stakes. Practical entry paths include IT/help desk (broad system visibility), SOC analyst (monitor and triage alerts), blue-team engineering (hardening, identity, cloud), and red-team/offensive roles (testing). Start with fundamentals: networking, OS internals, IAM, basic scripting, and cloud basics. Build a homelab, follow hands-on labs/CTFs, and write public notes-proof beats platitudes. Certifications (e.g., Security+) can help you past filters- practical evidence (incident write-ups, scripts, detections) often matters more to hiring teams.
\n\nAI raises both risk and defense. Attackers automate phishing, reconnaissance, and payloads- defenders gain anomaly detection, automated enrichment, and faster triage. That increases the value of human judgment, ethics, and systems thinking. A pragmatic sequence: learn core concepts → secure a basic web app or cloud instance → practice incident response and note-taking → pick a focus (cloud, endpoint, identity, appsec) → contribute to community (reports, talks, small tools). Expect pressure and, in some roles, on-call- protect yourself from burnout with routines and documentation. If you enjoy continuous learning and protecting people and systems, security offers meaningful work, solid pay, and many specializations-from threat intel to cloud security engineering.