Don’t be a victim of the global cyber security skills shortage

UK industry faces a massive problem:

There are not enough highly-skilled cyber security professionals.

This is already a major issue with the global shortfall estimated at just under three million[1], but with the value of data increasing and the sophistication of cyber-attacks steadily advancing, this shortfall could start looking a lot worse.

With security engineers hard to find – and those available commanding top salary figures – this puts many businesses in a tight spot. It has already been indicated that the skills deficit is impacting businesses and worryingly, the National Cyber Security Centre states that 72 per cent of companies experienced a cyber breach in the last 12 months.

You can’t protect what you can’t see

The ever-expanding cybercrime stats and diminishing pipeline of security talent mean that IT teams are overstretched. Rather than proactively mitigating the contributing factors, they’re cornered into a reactionary role of identifying compromises, recovering from mistakes, and addressing security incidents as they occur.

In the race to protect networks in an increasingly threat-heavy environment, without visibility, those responsible for safeguarding the sanctity of an organization’s data are flying blind.

Your data will transform your business – there’s no doubt about that. Companies increasingly need to do much more with less. Visibility is key to protecting network assets and information. Even if you’ve taken great care to implement critical, foundational cyber security elements like access control, segmentation and appropriate levels of cryptography, it will not change a simple, common-sense truth… you can’t protect what you can’t see.

So how can you overcome the ever-increasing threats, avoid unnecessary spend, gain network visibility, meet compliance & governance policy – and take advantage of AI-driven solutions to predict what’s safe and what’s not – all back-dropped against a massive shortage of skilled workers?

Here are CSI’s top tips:

• Analyse your risk and plan a strategy

Look across your organisation to identify the physical and digital items you believe need analysis to be protected; analyse your current defences and compile a list of gaps and areas of concern. From this deep dive, targets can be set on how to reach your ideal operating model. If you don’t have anyone internally to do this, enlist the help of an external expert. The armed forces and government trust our security and cyber strategy expertise.

• CISO-as-a-Service

Liberate IT teams by choosing cyber security expertise via a managed service route. With many companies struggling to attract people with the level of experience or talent required, recruitment of a dedicated Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) isn’t always viable. CISO-as-a-Service is a hugely cost-effective alternative. With clients typically saving 40-50 per cent compared to the cost of hiring someone full time – and with it, they get the most qualified, independently certified CISO.

• Seamless SIEM

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) is a critical component of any organisation’s security strategy. However, all too often, resource restraints mean the full functionality and benefit of SIEM technologies goes unused, increasing vulnerability to threat. SIEM as a Service enables you to reduce both threat and cost by providing a full range of unified threat management solutions.

• Data Protection can also be served up as-a-Service

When harnessed, data represents an enterprise’s greatest asset. When breached, data is its greatest weakness. Your security protection needs to be scalable. Data Protection as a Service (DPaaS) gives you granular control over your data and restores it very quickly. With around the clock reassurance, the benefit is that you only pay for the replication of data when you need it.

• Use AI-driven threat protection to fight back

There is a ceaseless advancement in the variety and sophistication of cyber threats. No sooner are you protected from attack, the attack changes shape. By using AI-driven threat protection, you are taking a real-time approach to spot, then act upon, the smallest of changes in vast streams of data before threat strikes. So rather than responding to an attack, you have the ultimate prevention.

In Summary:

Our National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) certified experts provide a full cyber managed service; from strategy and policy, compliance and reporting to cutting-edge AI-driven threat detection. It means that you can call on expertise trusted to protect national security to keep your data, devices, network and reputation safe from harm.

We take the burden away from your IT team and liberate them to regain their focus on the growth of your business.

[1] ISC2 cyber security workforce study, 2018