Asia-Pacific’s cybersecurity workforce gap hits 2.14m

According to a Cybersecurity Workforce Study by the International Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC2), the Asia Pacific region is experiencing the biggest workforce shortage in cybersecurity at about 2.14 million.

Asia’s shortage is attributed to the region’s growing economies and the enactment of new cybersecurity and data privacy legislation.

Globally the cybersecurity gap grew to 2.93 million, up from 1.8 million in the 2017 report.

The survey involved more than 1,400 cybersecurity professionals from around the world, who also weighed in on their workplace challenges and development priorities.

Among the top challenges cited was a lack of funding, a lack of skilled cybersecurity professionals, and a lack of understanding from management, and the rest of the organisation, about the significance of cybersecurity.

This last is also proving to be one of the big obstacles to career progression that cybersecurity professionals face. The cost of education to prepare for a cybersecurity career is another. (28%)

Other interesting findings from the study include the following:

• Women represent 24% of the broader cybersecurity workforce (compared to 11% from previous studies), while 35% are Millennial or Gen Y (compared to less than 20% from previous studies)
• More than half of all respondents globally (54%) are either pursuing cybersecurity certifications or plan to within the next year
• The four areas cybersecurity pros feel they will need to develop most or improve on over the next two years in order to advance in their careers include cloud computing security, penetration testing, threat intelligence analysis, and forensics.

Check out the full report here: (ISC)² cybersecurity workforce study, 2018