IT Industry Requires 145% Skilled Professionals in CyberSecurity

(ISC)² on 6th November 2019 announced that the industry needs around 145% workforce to keep the industry safe from cyber attacks. This means that there are only 2.8 million professionals in the industry and the industry requires more of 4.07 million professionals.

Their study looks closely at who are the cybersecurity professionals and what are their motivational factors. Which has revealed how organizational security teams are staffed outlining the data-driven insights into immediate and longer-term methods for building qualified and pressure absorbing teams for the future. In this study, it was found that:-

  1. 65% of organizations reported a shortage of cybersecurity staff or the staff they have doesn"t have the ideal skillset or experience. There were only 36% of professionals who fell under the bracket of cybersecurity professionals.

  2. Amongst the professionals who had taken up this research 66% of them reported that they are either somewhat satisfied with what they were doing in the organization. However, 65% of these professionals reported that they wish to stick to cybersecurity in their remaining careers.

  3. The average salary for a North American Professional with a cybersecurity certification is earning $93,000 and the ones without $76,500.

  4. This research also included 59% of cybersecurity professionals pursuing security certification or are intending to pursue it within the upcoming year.

  5. 58% of professionals revealed that they moved into cybersecurity from another field, whereas, 42% of them started their professional lives as a cybersecurity professional.

  6. 30% of the respondents in this research were women and amongst them, 23% of them have a job role in security.

  7. 37% of the respondents fell under 35 years and 5 % of them were under the age of 25 years who were the representatives of the generation X.

  8. Amongst the Organizations that took up this survey consisted of 62% of large organizations with more than 500 employees in it having a CISO, that number dropped to 50% amongst smaller organizations.

  9. 48% of the organization’s representatives said that their security budgets will increase by the next year.

Tentative Strategies for Building Cybersecurity Teams

For building the workforce and to recruit new talent there are 4 major strategies an organization must consider:-

• Highlighting professional development opportunities and training which can contribute to advancing one’s professional careers.
• Properly establishing an applicant"s qualification ensuring that they take upon the best opportunities and organizations get to hire the right talent.
• Attracting fresh talent from colleges or who have an equivalent degree in Cybersecurity, or professionals like consultants or contractual employees on a fulltime role
• Strengthening the organization from within by cross-training the IT staff with transferable skills

This research also reveals that the workforce working in Cybersecurity along with other IT professionals to a large extent are satisfied with their role in their respective organizations. However, there"s a huge gap in the size of the current workforce because of the number of available professionals in the workforce to safeguard an organization.

The research further showed that fresh talent was gathered by organizations from University graduates, consultants/ contractors, other departments from within the organization, security vendors and career changers. This is further explained in the below-given image:-

Now a cybersecurity aspirant can apply for courses like CEH & CISSP. In the IT industry, there are about 136,480 of CISSP professionals and the rest are CEH professionals. And keeping the gap in mind there are still 4.07 million more professionals that are wanted in the industry. Hence, professionals taking a CISSP or CEH certification have a huge scope. At present in the Indian market, there are nearly 20K jobs for CISSP professionals.

Let’s start with knowing little about CEH, a Certified Ethical Hacker is entitled to who eliminates black hat hackers from the systems of the organization and keeps the data, networks safe by identifying potential threats. An ethical hacker is also a part of the security team who during a cyber attack helps the organization in handling the damages and provides the support that protects the networks and monitors the networks for any irregularities.

Ethical Hackers are generally hired by IT firms, government agencies like the special forces, defense organizations, detective companies, forensic laboratories and in investigating service. Internet security and networking are the two fastest-growing segments in ethical hackers where one can find employment. Ethical hackers are hired to find any vulnerabilities that might exist in a network and to fix them. They can join the government as well as private organizations as cyber-security experts.

It has been seen that Ethical hackers in the past have been massively been hired by companies like Reliance, Airtel, HCL, Mahindra, TCS & IBM. Furthermore, Ethical hackers have also been in high demand amongst the Federal Bureau of Information & the National Security Agency. Along with this, there are various organizations that employ contractors to audit their systems and security testers.

In case if you are wondering ‘what does it take to become a CEH professional?’ you must know anybody can apply to for a CEH certification right after their high school. However, I’d recommend that you should have a basic knowledge or are at least familiar with the following concepts:-

• Making scripts having the ability to test the vulnerabilities and penetration
• Developing low-level tools which can enhance security monitoring and testing
• Sharing detailed reports with their team and executive about document security findings
• Assessing risk across the networks including hardware and software. And informing both the software and hardware developers about these vulnerabilities
• Setting up security policies to make protected practice for the personnel
• Reviewing & hiring vendors for security system incorporation
• Training peers and subordinates on best practices for network security

On the other hand, if you are eying on becoming a Certified Information System Security Professional you must have Have a minimum of five years of direct full-time security professional work experience in the below mentioned domains:

OR

• 4 years of direct full-time security professional work experience in two or more of the ten mentioned domains with a college degree.
• Complete the Candidate Agreement, attesting to the truth of his or her declaration regarding professional experience and legally commit to adhere to the (ISC) 2 Code of Ethics.

As far as your training is concerned for CISSP or for CEH there’s no other place like Mercury solutions. Here you will find pre-recorded sessions on the LMS along with live, classroom & doubt clearing sessions. You will also get your hands on the mock tests, Instructor-led -classes that will equip you with your rate of success. Go for the upcoming batch and check offers now. Enroll online!

Irrespective of your learning style Mercury Solutions is one institute that has come up with a course module in 3 different formats that are apt for all kinds of learners. It probably is the only institution that gives a cybersecurity aspirant the liberty to opt for their course amongst the following formats:-

• Live sessions: where you’ll get access to the LMS that has pre-recorded videos for you to be prepared for the class and get familiarised with the concepts prior to the class. You’d also get some informational videos here for you to memorize concepts, this is because they realize your learning style is as unique as you.
• On-demand training: here you’ll get lots of studies and reading material for you to refer to like blogs, handout practice material. This will help you in getting familiarised with the concepts and identifying your weak spots.
• Classroom sessions: here you can interact with the trainers who will share with you some of the practical methods to avoid getting hacked and keeping your firewalls guarded.

You will also get a chance to interact with your trainers and get your queries answered. This means you can raise the query on the portal and in some time your trainer will get back to you on it. This was my experience, you can know yours join today!