industry unlocked
qualify the costs of an attack, Lloyds
of London believes that the fallout from
a serious cyberattack could cost the
global economy more than £92 billion,
as much as natural disasters such as
Hurricane Katrina.
That same study reports that only 27%
of businesses surveyed have any formal
policy concerning cybersecurity at all.
While there are still a lot of businesses
that do have policies in place – the
problem they share is one that’s all too
familiar: they lack the available people
with the necessary skills.
Back to school
While a concerted effort to retrain
and cross-train existing employees is
important to help fight back against this
skills gap, the situation has become too
severe to rely on this approach alone.
In short, IT security needs to go back
www.intelligentciso.com
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Issue 17
IT security needs to
go back to school
and we need to start
properly educating
our younger
generations in
cybersecurity.
to school and we need to start properly
educating our younger generations in
cybersecurity, both in how to stay secure
and as a possible career choice.
To make matters more complex, our
study revealed that 84% of UK students
have never considered a career in
cybersecurity, trailing miles behind
countries such as Saudi Arabia and
the UAE, where only 50% and 46% of
surveyed students respectively had not
considered a career in that area.
What nobody seems to be properly
acknowledging is that, given the
enthusiasm and aptitude of the
iGeneration for digital technologies,
we are currently sitting on a potentially
rich seam of digitally literate talent; this
talent offers the perfect base upon which
to build new skills and awareness in
cybersecurity. Given the rate at which
the cyberthreat landscape is growing
and today’s always-on attitudes to
social media and online accounts at
home and school, it is perhaps time to
consider a more rigorous approach of
cybertraining. This should include the
teaching of security basics such as
digital footprinting, privacy settings and
password management, at the very least.
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