Cybersecurity skills crisis creating vulnerabilities


August 12, 2016

Cybersecurity staffing continues to be a problem, a new report has found. Intel Security says a massive 82 percent of IT professionals that it surveyed are battling a shortage in workers specializing in cybersecurity.

It’s proving to be a major deficit and is resulting in serious damage. Australia, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Mexico, U.S. and U.K. are all hurting for hires, the study says.

Market research specialist Vanson Bourne performed the survey and interviewed IT decision makers working in cybersecurity in developed countries.

A problem that results from not having enough experts is simply damage. Stolen proprietary data is directly linked to the lack of workers specializing in keeping things secure, claims James A. Lewis, senior vice president and director at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which produced the report alongside Intel’s McAfee security arm.

“A shortage of people with cybersecurity skills results in direct damage to companies, including the loss of proprietary data and IP,” Lewis says in a press release.

Seventy-one percent of the respondents agree with that, citing this IT-niche, people shortfall as “responsible for direct and measurable damage to organizations,” the release explains.

That “lack of talent” on board makes enterprises more “desirable hacking targets,” Intel and CSIS say.

An absence of education and training is predominantly to blame. Just 23 percent say there is enough of it. Students aren’t being prepared to enter the role. And inexplicably, there’s a dearth of “qualification sponsorship,” too. That’s causing talent to up and leave.

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