Advancing People Skills in Cybersecurity

Over an eight-year period tracked by Cybersecurity Ventures, the number of unfilled cybersecurity jobs grew by 350 percent globally, from one million positions in 2013 to 3.5 million in 2021.

Yes, organizations struggle to find and retain certified cybersecurity people. According to a survey published by Fortinet, global organizations indicated that they:

It is of utmost importance that organizations worldwide combine efforts to address the shortage of people skills as an industry – with the necessary planning and training that will qualify IT professionals to mitigate risks, and for organizations to secure and retain those services.

This shortage of certified cybersecurity professionals includes penetration testers and ethical hackers. Penetration testing is a proactive or offensive approach to exposing cybersecurity vulnerabilities at an organization. It consists of focused tests on specific parts of and processes at your organisation, typically on premise or remotely. It also includes cloud deployments. Ethical hacking covers a wider area.

Both are extremely useful for identifying system flaws that expose you to cybersecurity attacks (the extent of which can often only be identified through testing) and identifying the steps that need to be taken to address them. Many data protection laws and frameworks – such the Protection of Personal Information Act, GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) – mandate that penetration tests be conducted regularly.

Our 1000 Pentesters.Africa programme addresses this people skills gap in cybersecurity, and supports organizations to train and retain employees with ethical hacking and penetration test skill sets.