Cyber Security Industry Shifting to Crisis Mode as Jobs Go Unfilled
The dramatic rise in cybercrime is affecting governments, companies, NPO and industry organizations of all sizes around the globe, but that’s just the beginning.
The trend lines started in 2007 to 2013 when Cyber security job postings started growing at double the growth rate of all IT jobs. The labour pool has never caught up. Today, there are over 200,000 unfilled cyber security jobs in the U.S. alone. Cisco estimates that globally there are over one million cyber security job vacancies today. Michael Brown, Symantec’s CEO, expects demand to rise to 6 million positions by 2019, with a shortfall of 1.5 million.
What does that mean? So far in 2016, the Enterprise Strategy Group says “46% of organizations now claim that they have a problematic shortage of cybersecurity skills representing an 18% year-over-year increase.” It means that cyber security teams are understaffed in many places, making it difficult to properly protect their organization’s networks.
This news comes at a bad time. 2015 is already identified as the being the worse year ever for cyber crime, with nearly 1,000 major data breaches and countless others.
In Canada, PwC says “Cybersecurity incidents in Canada increased by 160% year-over-year” in their 2016 Global State of Information Security Survey. Obviously increased intrusions and awareness is driving demand for more certified professionals around the world.
If you’re wondering about how the workforce shortage is affecting salaries, Forbes recently published that “Top cyber security salaries in U.S. metros hit $380,000. The IT job board DICE reports that the top IT security salaries for lead security engineers are earning an average of $233,333 ($U.S.) today.
It’s a good time for young smart professionals to start getting training for the cyber security industry, but not a good time if you need to hire someone. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to get better any time soon.
What can your company do about it?
As the nature of threats are evolving, security tactics are changing too. New semi-automated security solutions from the vendor community may show some promise in the coming years, but is far from operational on a commercial level today. Many governments and organizations are sending their top talent back to school for specialized cyber security training.
Rashesh Jethi at Cisco says that “In the past, security was typically IT’s domain, part of something you did in infrastructure or in networking”, Today, more large companies have a Chief Security Officer (CSO) or a Chief Information Officer (CISO) who are now responsible for security.
Small to medium size organizations are definitely feeling pain, and most companies feel they are at risk. Increased competition amid rising threats are making it harder to fill those roles in-house.
For many of those organizations, making the change to Managed IT Services is the smartest option. Solution providers like Netcotech Network Systems provide the necessary IT security staffing, training and security updates your company needs to stay viable and competitive, so you can focus on business.