The world of technology is growing rapidly every day and so are the security vulnerabilities around these technologies. With so much of the business world reliant on technology, we need to ensure that there are enough trained professionals to properly manage and protect all the information made available through it. As it currently stands there are not enough IT security professionals that are properly trained to deal with such things as a cyber-attack, data leak and even an internal security audit. ISACA provided a survey in January that stated 86 percent of global organization leadership believes there are not enough skilled expects in the field to hire.
The demand for trained security leadership and senior level experts are in such high demand, the government and higher education programs alike are working together to develop a more stringent learning program to further educate our nation’s youth. One of the main reasons for this shortage is due to the sensitivity of the job at hand. During collage if you are a finance major, it is not hard to find an internship at a well-known financial institution. In cyber security, companies are limited to what they can expose Interns to. Interns that may only be around for the summer, they can risk a leak of sensitive information. As a result of this trend, it is hard for graduates to find starting jobs without any work experience in the first place. This has turned into a terrible cycle that is taking graduates longer to gain the experience needed to become experts.
The solution may not be so clear cut, but a change needs to happen starting in the high school level. No longer are the days where learning cursive writing is valuable, instead more technology based teachings should be implemented to stay ahead of this security curve. The second piece of the equation will be a little trickier to solve.
Getting early work experience started before graduation is a key point. Students need a place to get paid, mess up and have the ability to learn from their mistakes without it leading to a data breach. Investing in all technology based colleges for developers and security minded folks would be an awesome but expensive solution. This could be where the government could step in to help fill in this industry gap.
This shortage of trained security gurus will affect you sooner than later. In today’s technology based world where everything involves some sort of machine to help make life easier, you will need someone to turn to when vulnerabilities arise in this technology. The average market value for security folks are rising annually, so waiting until later may not be the best choice as fair as money goes. Overall a solution needs to be found to help steady the increase for advanced security help and also to implement this experience at a younger age with more opportunities to succeed. Only then will society have change at bridging this gap with technology.
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