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More Training Boosts Cybersecurity

Many organizations missing opportunity by not empowering their current work force.

Continuous cybersecurity training enables organizations to better use the expertise within their staffs. (Photo by Shutterstock)

A survey of thousands of information technology professionals reveals that a majority of organizations have too few security workers and nearly half do not provide adequate resources for security training. According to the “IT Professionals Are a Critically Underutilized Resource for Cybersecurity” study, 51 percent of the respondents said their systems are less able to defend against a cyber attack compared to a year ago.

Research for the study, which (ISC)²conducted, was based on responses from more than 3,300 information technology professionals, nearly 900 of whom work for the U.S. government. The report underscores how many organizations are not fully empowering and equipping their IT staff with the education and authority they need to effectively bolster their cybersecurity.

David Shearer, CISSP, CEO of (ISC)², says the findings suggest too many organizations overlook a tremendous pool of cybersecurity talent who are already on staff and intimately familiar with organizations’ infrastructure and processes.

“The quickest way for many organizations to bolster their cyber defense is through continuous security education and empowerment of their IT team. Security is a shared responsibility across any enterprise or government agency. Unless IT is adequately trained and enabled to apply best practices across all systems, even the best security plan is vulnerable to failure,” he says.

The report comes on the heels of research that predicts that a serious information security work force talent shortage looms in the next decade. Frost & Sullivan gathered the data for the Center for Cyber Safety and Education’s research report. More than 19,000 information security professionals worldwide indicated that, while employers will need millennials to fill the projected 1.8 million security jobs in 2022, many millennials seek the very career development and training opportunities today’s organizations currently do not provide.

“Millennials will and in many cases are already critical players who enable the success of our collective cyber defense,” says Angela Messer, executive vice president, cyber innovation business leader and cyber talent development champion, Booz Allen Hamilton. “To attract, retain and empower these millennials, it’s clear from the Global Information Security Workforce Study that our industry must be innovative not only in its tradecraft, but also in how we support this next generation of information security professionals,” she says.