Diverse cybersecurity staff are needed more than ever

The need for cybersecurity staff is growing and there are not enough candidates available. It seems that cyberthreats are impacting on businesses almost every day; this is illustrated by recent attacks on the brewing pub company McMenamins that led to compromised employee data.

Despite the need for staff, the ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study found that over the course of 2021 the workforce shortage increased in every region in the world except the Asia-Pacific region.

However, even in the Asia-Pacific region, there was a workforce gap of 1.42 million employees.

There have been positive steps forward as the number of cybersecurity workers has grown year on year. In fact, the Cybersecurity Workforce Study estimated that there are 4.19 million cybersecurity workers in the world. That is roughly 700,000 more than in 2020.

Nonetheless, ISC2 CEO Clar Rosso, noted: “The study tells us where talent is needed most and that traditional hiring practices are insufficient. We must put people before technology, invest in their development, and embrace remote work as an opportunity.”

Interestingly Rosso added that the most important area for improvement was the need to “adopt meaningful diversity, equity, and inclusion (D,E&I) practices to meet employee expectations and close the gap.”

Unique perspectives in cybersecurity

In terms of recruiting cybersecurity professionals, companies need to begin broadening their funnel. This can be done by removing identifying factors on CVs, and posting on job boards that are targeted towards diverse candidates.

Helen McGuire, the co-founder and CEO of bias-removing platform Diversely, told UNLEASH that the company “rewrote a job ad with more inclusive [and] neutral language, essentially replacing some of that male language. And we had 70% more applicants and about four times more women applying to the job ad .”

Evidently, lots of businesses can benefit from reassessing how they attract talent.

The need for these changes is illustrated by think tank The Aspen Institute. In their “Diversity, equity and inclusion in cybersecurity report”, they note that diversity efforts to date “have not addressed the overwhelming whiteness and male-ness of the cybersecurity field.”

Furthermore, the report estimates that only 4% of US cybersecurity workers self-identify as Hispanic, 9% as Black, and 24% as women.

This does not have to be the case, and professionals are working to attract more diverse candidates in every sense.

Speaking to Insider, Renana Friedlich-Barksy, PayPal’s senior director of security operations said: “I think one of the biggest things that scares people about cybersecurity is, ‘I’m not technical enough,’ or, ‘I don’t have coding skills.”

However, asking an employer to help train staff who have a basic understanding should not be looked down on. particularly amidst staff shortages.

Annee Bayeux, the chief learning strategist at Degreed, told UNLEASH of a need for cultural change when it comes to hiring and explains that young talent “come to interviews saying, “how are you going to teach me the skill?”

Bayeux explained that overlooking these candidates, means companies are losing out on quality hires that they can mold and upskill.

There is a need for the demographics of cybersecurity to change, and not only that, it must shift fast if the workforce gap is to be closed.

The only question is whether organizations will act before they make the headlines as a victim of the latest hack?