Intelligent CISO Issue 17 | Page 45

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 | 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. 45