The New York Times reports a statistic depicting a huge workforce-skill gap present in the cybersecurity sector. Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity positions globally by 2021, up from one million positions in 2014.
This employment figure is confirmed by numerous media outlets, including the world’s largest and industry associations, universities, governments, vendors, recruitment firms, and security experts.
Only one in four IT professionals qualified for cybersecurity open positions
The majority of the chief information security officers around the world are worried about the cybersecurity workforce-skill gap and believe that this problem will worsen. Also, the candidates that are presently applying for such positions, only one out of four are qualified for the job.
Currently, every IT position is a cybersecurity position. Every IT worker, technology executive should be involved in protecting and defending apps, data, devices, infrastructure, and people. An industry veteran who specializes in recruitment and placement of senior information security personnel states that it is a full-on war situation for cyber talent right now.
Every IT professional to have a complete know-how of security
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Robert Herjavec, the founder and CEO of Herjavec Group states that until the quality, education, and training of new cyber experts is not rectified, we will be outsmarted by the Black Hats. He further states that there is a zero percent unemployment rate in cybersecurity and the opportunities in this sector are endless. He said that all IT professionals need to know complete security.
Cybercrime increases as the world fight COVID-19
Also, as the world is fighting the COVID-19 health crisis, and the majority are forced to stay home, most of everything is moved online. Videoconferencing has taken precedence. Cybercrime has increased with cybercriminals moving fast to cash in on the popularity of such apps.
Zoom, one of the most popular videoconferencing tool, has observed its security and phishing issues increase at an alarming rate. Also, Google registered around 149,000 active phishing websites in January 2020. In February 2020, they doubled to 193,000, increasing to 522,000 in the next month, which is an almost 350 percent increase since January.
A critical time that warrants closure of the cybersecurity workforce-skill gap
Around the world, authorities are issuing warnings of malicious cyber activities, that are taking advantage of the COVID-19 health crisis. These activities are ranging from crypto-jacking to messages disguised as official notifications related to the new virus, and even hacking of the coronavirus vaccine research data.
Hence, it crucial to plug in the cybersecurity skill gap, and ramp up teams. The industry is spending huge amounts on the training and development of the cyber professionals which will improve the supply situation.