Blog Details

What To Do About The Cybersecurity Skills
Shortage?

It is simple economics— the supply and demand.

Apparently, an endless supply of increasingly complicated and innovative cyber-attacks has
also been driving the increased demand for qualified professionals in order to help defend
businesses.

However, are there enough professionals to meet such growing demands? Well, according
to a report, it does not seem that way!

Seventy-four percent of respondents revealed that their organizations are being affected by
this skill shortage. And this number has already sneaked up from 70 percent last 2018.
Organizations from various industries are anticipated to keep their consumers’ data secure
and safe. However, this growing shortage of qualified cybersecurity professionals makes it
difficult to do that.

So, how can your organization deal with this shortage?

1. Training

Organizations should build and develop their own internal cybersecurity professional skills
base. In short, your company needs to invest in comprehensive training and making your IT
professionals attend security conferences to increase their knowledge and skills.

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Only professionals with a thorough understanding of the standards and compliance and
end-to-end security issues can develop, support and maintain a robust security posture for
your organization’s needs.

2. Identify The Threats

Employees will always be your company’s greatest asset. However, they can also be your
most dreaded cybersecurity threat. You should consider the following:

Are your business units placed in deep silos? If so, the lack of communication across
your company can prove dangerous to organization-wide cybersecurity.

Are your employees overworked? Well, they tend to make more mistakes when
tired, causing you security problems.

Are security decisions made with internal insights? If your IT department is a
limited unit lacking the strong communication channels to your other business
departments, then they may not be making the best security decisions and
strategies for such departments.

Are responsibilities and roles clearly defined? When both non-IT and IT staff
perform security functions, there may be a lack of reliable governance and
coordination.

3. Integrate Cybersecurity Mind

Cybersecurity should never be the sole responsibility of the IT department— regardless of
its size. And although the IT team should lead the charge, the entire company needs to
realize and understand the crucial importance of cybersecurity.

Thus, all business data, processes and application owners need to have a role in protecting
their organization resources.

4. Prioritize Knowledge and Skills

If your HR department only looks to hire those who graduated a 4-year-college each
program, your organization fails to consider the varied perspectives and skills people with
the nontraditional backgrounds can bring.

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For instance, IBM has worked to prioritize attributesthat cannot be taught in a classroom—
passion for problem-solving, unrestrained curiosity, understanding of risks, and strong
ethics. People with such traits are believed to quickly pick up the necessary technical skills
via industry certifications, on-the-job training, modern vocational and skills educational
programs and community college courses.

5. Better Salaries

Some organizations already have good and knowledgeable IT professionals. The problem is
that they tend to neglect them and causing them to leave for another company.

A report revealed that 85 percent of the cybersecurity workforce is open to new
opportunities with only 15 percent not looking to switch jobs. In addition, these valued
cybersecurity professionals are being contacted various times a month while others
contacted numerous times a day by aggressive recruiters.

Often ties, cybersecurity pros find it hard to compete with better salary packages that can
contribute to why these professionals were looking to find new jobs.

If your organizations can’t compete on their salary packages, you will have to find other
ways in order to add value. Can you develop mentorship programs, offer training for their
career path or allow them to learn new skills?

Overall, providing training opportunities, making them feel valued, and offering
competitive salary packages can help you retain these valued employees.