Ask HN: Cybersecurity Career and Foreign Languages

[davidwsilva]

For an English speaker seeking to broaden horizons in a cybersecurity career and considering that learning a foreign language would strongly contribute to that, what would be the recommended language to learn and why?

[gwittel]

It can help. At times my company has sought experts on varying threat actors.

Sometimes studying these come with language needs based on the actors’ origin (Russian, Chinese, Farsi, Korean, etc.). While not technically a requirement, it can make things harder when tracking, reversing, etc if you don’t speak the language.

Looking at the current threat landscape and where things often come from Russian or Chinese would be very useful. Looking beyond security, I’d ask if a one language or another in particular is useful or interesting to you.

[davidwsilva]

Thank you for your feedback. Yes, Russian and Chinese are definitely coming back as typical answers every time I have this conversation with cybersecurity folks. Important to notice that they are quite a challenge and probably not within the first choices if the person can just pick any language. At the same time, I assume that learning these can be rewarding for exactly the same reasons.

[walshemj]

Who you want to work for ? civilian or are you considering national security.

[davidwsilva]

Civilian, at first. But your question implies that civilian x national security would involved different recommendations. Thus, the direct (and current) answer is working as a civilian. However, in the case of national security, what would be the difference in your recommendations?