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talent; this talent offers the perfect base
upon which to build new skills and awareness
in cybersecurity. Given the rate at which
the cyberthreat landscape is growing and
today’s always-on attitudes to social media
and online accounts at home and school, it
is perhaps time to consider a more rigorous
approach of cybertraining. This should
include the teaching of security basics such
as digital footprinting, privacy settings and
password management, at the very least.
James Lyne, Head of
Research and Development,
SANS Institute
let alone considering a career in the industry.
Given that these are the workforce of the
future, this has the potential to be highly
damaging to the country’s ambitions in
areas such as 5G, IoT and other connected
areas. We are already in a hyper-connected
society, but it’s vital that we ensure
innovation does not outpace IT security,
exacerbating an already sizeable problem.
We’re not minding the gap
Indeed, we’re already seeing the impact of
this shortage of skilled cybersecurity staff. The
government has reported that around 43% of
businesses have experienced a cybersecurity
breach or attack in the last 12 months. The
severity of the attacks varies, as does their cost
to businesses and the wider UK economy, but
without dedicated and educated personnel,
the potential for greater damage is huge.
While it may be hard to quantify and qualify
the costs of an attack, Lloyds of London
believes that the fallout from a serious
cyberattack could cost the global economy
more than £92 billion, as much as natural
disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.
That same study reports that only 27% of
businesses surveyed have any formal policy
concerning cybersecurity at all. While there
are still a lot of businesses that do have
policies in place – the problem they share
is one that’s all too familiar: they lack the
available people with the necessary skills.
Back to school
While a concerted effort to retrain and
cross-train existing employees is important
to help fight back against this skills gap, the
situation has become too severe to rely on
this approach alone. In short, IT security
needs to go back to school and we need
to start properly educating our younger
generations in cybersecurity, both in how to
stay secure and as a possible career choice.
To make matters more complex, our study
revealed that 84% of UK students have
never considered a career in cybersecurity,
trailing miles behind countries such as Saudi
Arabia and the UAE, where only 50% and
46% of surveyed students respectively had
not considered a career in that area.
What nobody seems to be properly
acknowledging is that, given the enthusiasm
and aptitude of the iGeneration for digital
technologies, we are currently sitting on
a potentially rich seam of digitally literate
WE ARE CURRENTLY SITTING ON A
POTENTIALLY RICH SEAM OF DIGITALLY
LITERATE TALENT.
www.intelligentcio.com
FEATURE: SKILLS AND TRAINING
Fortunately for the country, there is
government backing. In 2016 the UK
government launched the National Cyber
Security Strategy, setting out a number
of initiatives across the country in order
to improve cybersecurity skills, including
£20 million of funding to its cyberschools
programme, Cyber Discovery, designed
to give pupils aged 14-18 clear pathways
and direction to the cybersecurity industry
through direct contact with industry experts.
Cyber Discovery gets right to the heart of
this issue, helping to develop and nurture the
skills and aptitude among school children
that are needed to help defend our country
and its businesses against cybercriminals. The
free, extra-curricular programme is primarily
delivered through an online gamified portal
that is designed to spark interest and deliver
comprehensive training through a series of
online challenges. Using personal devices
to compete with others via online platforms
for competitions and collaborative projects
have all been proven as successful methods
of engaging, immersing and educating pupils
in the world of cyber. It can’t all be wrong as
a recent McAfee report demonstrated that
96% of businesses using these techniques
reported benefits being seen across the board
when it comes to cybersecurity.
Stimulating this kind of interest and growth
in the cybersecurity sector will take a
nationwide and collaborative approach.
Proper funding, better allocation of school
budget and support from industry are all
required to come together in an effort
that will reap more reward than the sum
of its parts. As well as unlocking career
opportunities in a highly lucrative sector, this
will equip pupils with IT skills for safer online
navigation – benefiting themselves, the
broader population and businesses in the UK
as we continue on our journey forwards into
the unknown. n
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