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Cybersecurity Talent Shortage is Getting Worse: Study

A new study puts hard numbers behind the cybersecurity industry’s often-discussed talent shortage, and they’re bleak.

“Despite significant efforts, the skills gap continues to widen,” according to ISACA, an information-technology governance association, summarizing the results of its State of Cybersecurity 2019 white paper.

As Security Boulevard notes, the group polled more than 1,500 cybersecurity professionals internationally who hold at least one of the following ISACA designations: Certified Information Security Manager and CSX Cybersecurity Practitioner. In the November 2018 survey, 69% of respondents said their cybersecurity teams were understaffed.

The lack of cybersecurity talent has caused jobs to go empty longer, ISACA found. Specifically, 58% of respondents indicated that their organizations have unfilled cybersecurity posts. Cybersecurity positions have been sitting vacant at least six months at a growing share of respondents’ organizations, up to 32% last year from 26% in 2017.

The survey results also shed light on the dearth of job candidates with the necessary expertise. Almost 60% of respondents said that half or more of applicants for cybersecurity openings were unqualified. Nearly 30% said that more than three-quarters of applicants were unqualified.

These findings are stable from the previous year, according to the report, and most respondents said the openings were for technical cybersecurity jobs. At the executive level, nearly three-quarters of respondents said their organizations had no unfilled cybersecurity positions.

The rising Internet of Things could exacerbate the shortage. A report from Experis, a staffing company, claims that a failure by companies to hire full-time cybersecurity pros is slowing the growth of IoT, according to IoT News. The report notes that cybersecurity jobs increased by 16.6% in the most recent quarter, compared with a 48.8% rise in the IoT jobs market over the same period.

A recent report by PwC predicted 1.5 million cybersecurity jobs will be open by the end of this year.

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