Cyber Security Workforce Gap Is Huge: Over 2.9 Million Workers Needed

(ISC)²’s Cyber Security Workforce Study for 2018 had some interesting revelations regarding the state of the cybersecurity workforce. There might a be a cybersecurity crisis on the horizon is action isn’t taken anytime soon. There’s also a pretty sweet silver lining.

Worldwide there’s a shortage of nearly 3 million workers in cybersecurity. Europe, Africa and the Middle East could do with over 140 thousand workers in this space, whilst in the biggest demand lies in Asia which was found lacking 2.14 million cybersecurity workers.

59% of organizations surveyed indicated that their organization is at extreme or moderate risk due to cybersecurity staff shortage. Unfortunately, 39% of companies studied said they didn’t expect to make any changes regarding their cybersecurity staff.

What’s the hold up?

Why isn’t there as much pressure in the Cybersecurity fields as we seem to be seeing with trends such as coding? (ISC)²’s report listed some of the challenges faced by Cybersecurity initiatives:

Not all doom and gloom

Regardless of the fact that not enough is being done there is one big potential positive that comes from the current state of things. Job Creation.

Whilst there is a lot of noise made about the jobs that will be destroyed by the AI and other internet trends, not enough is said about the potential creation of new jobs. Here is one such market that is wide open and ready to assimilate over a million workers. Something to think about for the young guys and girls pondering a career in technology…

Read the (ISC)²’s CYBERSECURITY WORKFORCE STUDY, 2018