Plugging the cyber-security skills gap

An E-skills survey of CISOs with 40 employers found that 85% of organizations experience recruitment problems as a result of not enough candidates with the right cyber-security skills. According to the NAO, the government is working to address this and has said that it intends to overhaul ICT teaching in schools to make it genuinely about computer science rather than office skills. There is evidence that employers are waking up to perhaps the biggest risk to the security of their operations. The PWC 2013 Information security breaches survey was commissioned by the department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).2 Only around half (53%) of respondents were confident that they would have sufficient security skills to manage their risks in the next year. The most significant shortage is among those workers directly responsible for doing the hands-on work necessary to defend networks and systems. This is because these are the most in-demand professionals out.