The Other Cyber Skills Gap: Educating Tomorrow?s CISOs

By now, no one questions the investment and focus on training tomorrow’s cybersecurity and technology professionals. There continues to be a widely-recognized gap between the number of qualified, job-seeking security professionals and the number of positions necessary to secure the world’s networks, both now and into the future. 

While the discourse has focused heavily on educating the next generation to fill critical practitioner-level roles in government and corporate cyber defense, few have considered how education will play a significant role in helping the current generation take their place in that future fight – as senior security executives at the board and briefing room tables.

New Considerations for an Expanding CISO Role
A significant piece of the challenge for educating tomorrow’s chief information security officers (CISOs) is the rapidly changing nature of the role, and the increasing demands placed upon it. According to the member CISOs of the Security for Business Innovation Council in a recent report, not only do security leaders need an in-depth understanding of their business, but they are regularly called upon to provide counsel on what the appropriate risks are for their organization.

“Today, we want and are expected to be business enablers that are helping to drive not only growth, but innovation,” says Jerry R. Geisler III, Senior Vice President and Global Chief Information Security Officer, Walmart, Inc. “If your company wants to do something new, you have to bring security to other areas of the organization and truly understand where the business is (Read more...)