Sizing the Cybersecurity Skills Gap: A white paper

Whether you're in charge of the security of your organization’s data and systems, or working in IT security, or looking for a career, it is hard to ignore headlines like this: “One Million Cybersecurity Job Openings in 2016.” The term “cybersecurity skills gap” is now being used as shorthand for the following assertion: there are not enough people with the skills required to meet the cybersecurity needs of organizations. (You will also see cyber skills gap as a short form of cybersecurity skills gap, but some people also use cyber skills gap for the broader lack of people with skills like coding, networking, etc. so I often use cybersecurity skills to avoid ambiguity)

But is this gap real? Is the million missing people claim true? The security industry has a shaky record when it comes to numbers, something I talked about at Virus Bulletin last year in the context of cybercrime (see paper and video of session here). At this year's Virus Bulletin in Denver I will be presenting a paper about efforts to address the cybersecurity skills gap. I am also studying aspects of the problem for my MSc dissertation (see CISO Survey).

In the midst of all this work I accumulated some observations about the size of the cyber skills gap and wrote them up in my spare time, in the form of a paper titled Sizing the Cyber Skills Gap. I hope folks find this useful.
.