Let’s face the facts. Hackers have us outnumbered—so much so that the number of available people ready to step into cybersecurity jobs is lacking big time. As a result, organizations are starting to think outside the box when it comes to getting the right staff on board to protect their networks.
In a recent Bloomberg BusinessWeek article, Dune Lawrence reports some interesting statistics and outlines the ways in which companies are dealing with the shortage in cybersecurity staff. Highlights of the article are as follows:
- Frost & Sullivan, a consulting firm, conducted a survey of 12,000 information security specialists. 56 percent said their organization was understaffed in that department
[IT security]. - Cybersecurity job postings take 24 percent longer to fill than all information technology jobs and 36 percent longer than job postings overall, according to Burning Glass Technologies, a labor-market research firm.
- College programs can’t produce enough bodies to fill the expanding need, so some companies suggest looking below college level.
- Symantec is putting $2 million into a pilot project to train urban youth for entry-level jobs in cybersecurity. Soon, more than 300,000 jobs are going to be available. Symantec believes that individuals could fill 20 percent of those positions with no college degree.“People who graduate with a four-year degree related to cybersecurity, they’re not going into entry-level positions, they’re going straight to jobs requiring more experience,” says Marian Merritt, director of cyber education and online safety programs at Symantec. “Yet companies are desperate for the analysts who do the grunt work of cybersecurity, looking at network logs, administering systems settings, etc.”
- Doug McLean, Vice President Of Global Marketing at Seculert, a security company in Santa Clara, California, believes that there is a mismatch between the broad education you get in any college program and the realities of entry-level cybersecurity jobs. In addition, more vocational training could meet companies’ needs better, according to McLean.
In the end, this is a great start to finding ways to fill those much-needed security positions. We need to continue thinking outside the box in order to outnumber hackers, once and for all.
For more information regarding this topic, read the full Bloomberg BusinessWeek article.
