The demand for cybersecurity professionals has increased over the past decade; however, in the early 2020s, there is a significant gap in this field, with most countries, and the United States in particular, looking for specialists whose knowledge and skills are aligned. With digital transformations.

With the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020, the cyber security world received a new shock as millions of workers suddenly left the office and started working remotely. Some companies made this leap overnight, forcing many cyber security professionals to secure remote cloud-based communication mechanisms quickly, but in the face of new emerging threats surrounding these infrastructures.

However, a year later, the workforce shortage in cybersecurity and the lack of people with relevant skills manifested itself more seriously. Based on the studies conducted by ISC Institute, we can see that the number of workforce recruitment in the field of cyber security on a global scale has decreased from 4 million people to 3.1 million people.

More specifically, there are nearly 400,000 open cybersecurity positions in the United States alone. However, on a global scale, organizations need millions of cybersecurity professionals to defend their critical assets effectively.

Erin Weiss Kaya, strategy and talent specialist at Booz Allen, who is responsible for recruiting experts for cyber organizations, says, “The world of security is an industry that always faces emerging threats, and everything in it is constantly changing. Technologies such as 5G and the Internet of Things should be mentioned among the new threatening factors. “However, we still have a 0 percent unemployment rate in this field, while the demand for these professionals continues to rise.”

“Industries and the risks associated with them will only get bigger in 2022, so we must begin strategic talent acquisition strategies now to close the skills gap,” says Ondrey Krehl, CEO and founder of cybersecurity firm LIFARS. In part of his talk, the digital crime and ethical hacking expert points out that hackers have become more innovative and faster, which means defense teams must do the same to build a strong cybersecurity team and ensure that a problem They don’t have because of lack of workforce.

The right skills are hard to come by

However, finding and attracting talent with the right cybersecurity skills is tricky; if we are looking to prepare a list of required technical skills, it is difficult to find suitable options early in the list preparation. Krehl notes that a cybersecurity job description is complex due to the security industry’s breadth and various international certifications.

In addition, when hiring specialists, we must also pay attention to the fact that these people, apart from non-technical skills, are familiar with topics such as Scrum and Agile methodologies and have good flexibility in facing problems, which makes it more difficult to hire such people.

He does. “Here, we mean the set of necessary skills, not the technical tools,” he explains. More precisely, these people must be able to deploy the tools and interpret the data correctly.”

Without bridging the labor gap, solving the employment skills problem is only a tiny part of the cybersecurity crisis. “Organizations need to figure out how to get the most out of their existing security teams,” says Marcus Fowler, director of strategic threats at Darktrace. This company works on applying artificial intelligence in the cyber industry.

In addition, expert forces must align themselves with autonomous tools and intelligent algorithms to become more agile and solve security challenges more intelligently.”

“The power of artificial intelligence and machine learning to perform initial tests related to security incidents helps security teams quickly take control of situations,” he says. Autonomous AI-powered research allows teams to conduct preliminary tests with minimal time spent and prioritize the essential items. The above approach gives security experts more time to conduct strategic analysis and know more precisely the dimensions of the attack.

1. Make job postings more attractive to attract top talent

According to Dr. Pam Rowland, assistant professor of cybersecurity at Dakota State University and co-founder of the development organization CybHER, many organizations need to revamp their job postings to be able to attract top talent. He says, “Recruiting teams need to take a critical approach and redesign their job postings instead of using the same strategies as the last ten years.”

“Companies should abandon advertisements aimed mostly at attracting male specialists and not be inclined to prepare long lists of needs that no human in the world can fulfill.” Research shows that men look at such listings, and only 25% of those who qualify send an application, but women say, I can’t do that; I am not usually the one that handles it.

2. Attract security-savvy software engineers looking for job opportunities

“One of the great ways to expand the existing talent pool is to recruit security-minded software engineers who have many of the right skills and are looking for opportunities to strengthen infrastructure by deploying small, targeted tools,” said Jason Meller, CEO, and founder of Kolide. . These tools, which include vulnerability scanners, penetration testing tools, and endpoint equipment data collection, quickly meet the business needs of the security industry, and also allow novice security professionals to improve their skill level and perform tasks.

Do it faster. “Surprisingly, many developers of popular open-source security tools are often underappreciated by their current employer,” he says. If you can connect with people and encourage them to continue with your project, you have a chance to make the most of them in the real world and have a win-win deal. In this case, you will have a passionate expert ready to protect the current infrastructure and will significantly help your security team advance their future goals.”

However, it would be best if you did not neglect to recruit a cyber security workforce through recruitment strategies. “I feel the security industry needs to make the most of non-traditional, non-linear approaches to recruiting,” says Kaya.

The industry uses fairly traditional employment definitions to find available resources and technical skills, leaving them behind. “We must figure out how to look at talent as a valuable asset to enter the field and then how to use training programs to improve these people’s specialized skill levels.”

3. Get talent to work with the security team by offering incentives

According to Meller, another great way to identify top candidates within the organization is to create incentive structures for employees to engage directly with the security team in a meaningful way. For example, your company’s strategy may be based on project-based hiring of external hackers to report cyber issues, but what mechanisms and incentives do you have in place for internal security staff to report internal problems?

According to him, once these internal communication structures are established, you may find that you have many employees willing to fill vacant positions quickly and become experts in the field soon.

4. Invest in holding training sessions to provide employees with international qualifications

“Industry needs to commit to training young workers and providing them with the resources they need so that they can maintain the dynamism of their early days and succeed in doing things,” says Krehl. “Companies should organize programs to help new graduates on the job and provide them with practical training.”

Indeed, international certifications can’t take the place of years of experience. Still, Krehl notes that helping entry-level and mid-level employees gain skills in the functional areas and aspects of cybersecurity, such as operations, digital criminology, and policy.

5. Find girls in middle school

High school might be a little late to teach girls cybersecurity concepts, but Rowland says, “Middle school is when they’re deciding whether computer science is for them. We found that if we can give them the necessary motivation in middle school, they will be prepared to take this subject more seriously in high school and see that these topics are not as scary as they think. Once they know cyber security, they are more likely to continue exploring it.”

Post-pandemic prospects for the cybersecurity workforce

As of 2020, the cybersecurity industry market size was $167.1 billion and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10% from 2020 to 2027. With this level of growth, it is clear that we will see many changes after a year of transformation, increasing and strengthening a qualified and diverse post-pandemic workforce.

According to the Cyber ​​Security Workforce Study, 49 percent of respondents expect their organization to hire more cybersecurity professionals in the next year. However, there are no signs that the cybersecurity skills gap will narrow significantly in the coming year.

However, people like Kaya Bose Allen are optimistic. He notes that the unprecedented changes and emerging threats of the past year have ushered the world of cyber security into a new era that will appeal to most people.

He says: “I think there is a lot of interest in this area; we are looking at attracting talent through non-traditional mechanisms and channels to attract top talent in the shortest possible time. “This is an exciting time for cybersecurity professionals, as you face fascinating challenges that will make your today and tomorrow not the same.”