Career Profile: Cryptologist

Job Title: Cryptologist
Also known as: Cryptanalyst, Cryptographer, Cryptologic Technician, Cryptologic Linguist, Symbolist, Decipherer, Information Security Expert, Intelligence Agent or Officer, Information Security Engineer

What is a Cryptologist?

A Cryptologist is someone who is skilled at deciphering codes, puzzles or cryptograms, and at creating them in order to protect private information.

What does a Cryptologist do?

Cryptologists not only decipher codes or cryptograms, but they also invent them. Cryptologists create secret codes used for communicating military secrets, protecting government, medical and other private information, disguising spy communications, and for encrypting our own personal information to protect it from prying eyes on the Internet.

Old spy movies spring to mind when one hears the term “cryptologist”. One can imagine Cold War spies deciphering and delivering secret messages across enemy lines. But all of this makes Cryptologists seem like relics. The truth is, Cryptologists are alive and well and very much a part of our modern technology-driven world. In fact, Cryptologists Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijimen created what is now known as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), the encryption standard used by the U.S. government to protect classified information, and by ecommerce companies to protect your credit card information.
Cryptology is still widely used by the government and the military. In fact, the military is the largest employer of cryptologists. The government and military employ Cryptologists to help decode and decipher messages relayed in foreign languages and symbols, to find patterns in intelligence data, and to develop “secret codes” to be used by military personnel to communicate military strategies.

Cryptologists are in the thick of the identity theft efforts of banks, credit card and ecommerce companies too. These companies want to be able to offer their customers protection from identity thieves. Cryptologists create the algorithms that are used to disguise the information we enter into search engines, online banking websites and online payment sites.

Government secrets and identity theft aren’t the only applications of Cryptologists talent; they work with financial services firms to develop mathematical models to predict the behavior of stock markets. Cryptologists help financial firms, and other companies involved in the stock markets, to figure out when and how much money to invest in different types of investments.

Cryptologists also analyze large amounts of data from computer programs, games and natural occurrences, i.e. patterns in our DNA, business results, gaming results, weather patterns, computer games and viruses, to find a pattern that will allow them to predict when the next event will occur. If Cryptologists can predict when something will occur, they can save money, time and even lives.

Finally, Cryptologists work with law enforcement agencies from the police to the CIA. Cryptology comes in handy when trying to decipher codes used between gang members to disguise discussions of criminal activity, or to figure out what a serial killer’s pattern might be. Cryptologists work with the CIA, FBI and Homeland Security to figure out all kinds of patterns and codes, and to create models for predicting the likelihood of certain behaviors or actions–from most likely terrorism targets to the most likely victims of certain crimes to the best place and time to confront an opponent.

Who do they work for?
Many Cryptologists work for technology companies, such as Google, Microsoft and AOL. Others work for credit card companies, online payment companies such as PayPal, and just about any company responsible for managing private personal customer information.

In addition to their work with private industry, Cryptologists also work for law enforcement agencies, government agencies, the armed forces, universities and research institutes. In these organizations, their roles vary from being theoreticians (people who study cryptograms and algorithms and develop theories about them) to being a part of military intelligence (creating algorithms to disguise military communications, and trying to break the codes of other countries military intelligence) to gang taskforce officers (cops who break gang code to discover locations and dates of criminal activity).

How much does it pay?

Cryptologists earn a relatively high salary, generally between $60,000 and $125,000 per year with a median salary of nearly $83,000.

To break in you’ll need…

An entry-level Cryptologic job will require at least a BS in computer science, mathematics, foreign languages, engineering, telecommunications, computer programming languages, political science and/or international relations.

Mid-level and advanced cryptologic jobs require fluency in foreign languages, mastery of computer programming languages, and/or extensive mathematics knowledge, in addition to a Masters of Science or PhD degree in one of the areas of study listed above.

Most Cryptologists must hold a PhD and have more than 5 years experience to earn top dollar.
The best way to break into this field is through an internship. The National Security Association (NSA) provides several great internship opportunities as part of it’s Director’s Summer Program, Intelligence Analysis Summer Program, Mathematics Summer Employment Program, Information Assurance Seasonal Internship Program, Knowledge Discovery Seasonal Internship Program, and Signals Intelligence Collection & Collection Management Summer Intern Program (CCMP).

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) also offers internships for undergraduates and graduate students.

For those of you who may be beyond your internship needs, but currently enrolled in graduate schools, there’s the NSA’s Graduate Mathematics Program (GMP) for grad students intending to pursue careers in mathematics and computer science, the Intelligence Acquisition and Business Management Summer Program for undergrads and graduate students who want to pursue careers in the business side of the intelligence industry, the Summer Language Program, a 2-year flexible language apprenticeship program that offers exceptional intern a job at the end of the second year, and the Summer Program for Operations Research Technology (SPORT), a 12-week apprenticeship program that allows top MS and PhD candidates to work with NSA Ops Research and Technology employees to create models and simulations in state-of-the-art computer facilities.

You may also apply for the NSA’s Cryptanalysis Development Program (CADP), the NSA’s in-house on-the-job and classroom training program for newly hired cryptanalysts and the Navy’s Cryptologic Technician Interpretive Training.

Who might like this job?

Anyone who loves numbers, enjoys puzzles and mysteries, has great problem-solving skills, can create detailed simulations and models, and gets a thrill out of decoding and deciphering secret codes. Also, those who have a gift for foreign language and computer programming languages. This is a great job for anyone who has dreamed of being a spy, solving the world’s great mysteries (the Holy Grail, the DaVinci Code?) or simply protecting the good people of the world from hackers and identity thieves.

The majority of cryptologic jobs are with the government, so a future Cryptologist must be suited to working for Uncle Sam, or at least a government contractor. But, if you can’t bear the thought of working for Big Brother, there are plenty of jobs in data and information security, business intelligence and gaming.

Finally, a great part of cryptography involves time spent alone studying data sets, numbers and theories, translating and deciphering written and verbal communications, and developing, checking and re-checking algorithms and symbols.

What about this career doesn’t suck?

Cryptography scores highly on the WorkYourWay Index because it is a growing field with lots of new jobs, particularly in the field of information security and in government defense, the military and Homeland Security. Cryptologic jobs score highly for their above average salaries (even entry-level college students who participate in apprenticeships can earn more than $40,000 per year), and the opportunity to do good works (protect fellow citizens, protect your country, solve life’s mysteries, resolves significant problems). Because many cryptologic jobs are with the government or with large financial or technology firms, the benefits are great–health care, pensions, vacation, performance bonuses, travel, etc. Of course, accessing those benefits requires some fairly stiff prerequisites in terms of education, knowledge and experience. This, and the fact that some jobs are high-pressure, whether due to competition to find the answers first, or to the direness and urgency of the consequences if answers are not discovered, deducted a few points. Also, many cryptologic jobs often require a lot of solitude and time spent with data–whether computer data sets or messages transmitted in foreign or coded language. So, the final tally for Cryptologic jobs is…80%!

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