The fifth SYN-of-the-week is SLOTH.
Sloth is the SYN of allowing immediate demands to consume our attention at the detriment of other essentials leading (eventually) to our downfall. As a profession, our sloth in addressing the cyber security workforce shortage is having a profound effect on our ability to secure our organizations.
According the to the ISC 2022 report, the number of cyber security professionals have grown to over 4 million in the past years, but in spite of the increase in numbers, the gap is growing 2x faster than the workforce has expanded. According to their estimates still have a gap of over 3 million. https://www.isc2.org/Research/Workforce-Study
The World Economic Forum has taken up the cause. Cyber security professionals are essential to protect against existential threats to our critical infrastructures and the increasing sophistication of cyber crime. Their approach is to promote the establishment of public-private initiatives to re-skill professionals with an emphasis workforce diversification. https://tinyurl.com/yuj6w77u
If you work in cyber security, you know that the work is challenging, rewarding and varied enough that it does not get boring. Too few people and too much work leads to overtime, burn out and increased risk of successful cyber attacks. We need to put our sloth aside and get ahead of this problem. How do we attract more people to this area?
The counterbalance to sloth is DILIGENCE.
Diligence can take many forms. As an individual, you can participate in forums to welcome new people to the world of cyber, share your experience in community events (like BSidesMunich!) and/or or personally mentor individuals. Organizations and companies could pool their resources to offer upskilling opportunities in targeted areas for career changers or partner with local universities to offer targeted entry-level training. The key is to find at least one approach to bridging the gap and commit to make the change and follow through.
Image: https://labs.openai.com/s/6nWQhvvZ3CSaflHqw52x03Is
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