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Cybersecurity Firms Not Immune to Tech Layoff Wave   Featured

A recent skid in technology stocks and cooldown for public offerings has led to a wave of layoffs across the sector, and cybersecurity companies are no exception.

financial crisis 544944 640 smallAt least 15,000 tech-related jobs are being cut, as MarketWatch reports, citing data from startup tracker ​​Layoffs.fyi. Cybersecurity startup Aura’s CEO, Harvi Ravichandran, said his company was keeping a close eye on costs and hunkering down “for years” of macroeconomic challenges such as inflation, war, tangled supply lines and post-COVID fallout. “This is impacting the entirety of the business ecosystem,” he told MarketWatch.

The layoffs come as cybersecurity firms are still seeing record growth amid soaring ransomware attacks, as CNBC reports. Demand for data protection remains strong, but with valuations likely to drop and the IPO market scuttled, some cybersecurity players are finding themselves squeezed for capital.

Lacework, Cybereason, Deep Instinct, OneTrust and Automox are among cybersecurity companies announcing job cuts recently, as CRN notes. Cybereason has confirmed that it is terminating about 100 employees, representing 10% of its workforce. “We were not optimized as a business,” CEO Lior Div told CNBC, citing capital constraints.

Research firm Forrester, in a blog post, argued that the “gilded age of cybersecurity unicorns” is ending. “​​The economic downturn is in its early stages, but it certainly appears as if the hypergrowth phase of the cybersecurity vendor party has come to an end—abruptly,” the blog post notes. Forrester suggested the time is now for security leaders to recruit from vendors in an industry notoriously plagued by a talent shortage.

Indeed, corporate headhunters view the layoff wave as an opportunity to fill openings that languished during the tight job market, as The Wall Street Journal reports. Yael Cosset, chief information officer at Kroger Co., said that while “there is still a massive shortage of talent,” including for cybersecurity roles, the supermarket chain is “making good progress” in its recruitment efforts.

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