Empowering the Cybersecurity Workforce

“Explore. Experience. Share.” This October, National Cybersecurity Awareness Month emphasizes the importance of cybersecurity career awareness, focusing on inspiring the exploration of such careers. To successfully promote a career within the cybersecurity field, there needs to be a better understanding of the following:

  1. Industry demands—The skills gap is expanding. Organizations need to enact creative strategies to fill these roles.
  2. Employee support—In order to attract new talent, companies must empower their current workforce.

Cybersecurity Skills Gap Analysis

There are about 465,000 open positions in cybersecurity nationwide as of May 2021. While initiatives to encourage employment within the cybersecurity field are key to filling these roles, there is also a push needed in fostering cybersecurity education. Fortunately, this year’s crop of talent has already demonstrated their work ethic in a virtual environment under unprecedented circumstances while exercising their skills through practical offerings such as the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, or NCCDC. What sets many of them apart from their more tenured counterparts is that they have experienced and successfully performed while facing real-world threats even before earning their degree.

Supporting these individuals will be key to meeting the expected skills demand. We need to develop the skills of individuals from all backgrounds, traditional and nontraditional, who are curious and think creatively and can address the specialized needs for depth of expertise that only subject matter experts can address. With the continued shift to remote work in the face of a pandemic, we must be more intentional in our talent development efforts.

While hiring nontraditional candidates helps to fill the gap now, we must also look toward long-term solutions to eliminate the skills gap entirely. Schools like the new Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering—a fully public, residential high school for students seeking advanced studies in engineering and cybersecurity technology—are a great first step toward accomplishing this goal. By building initial interest in cybersecurity and engineering and then fostering that interest through tailored curriculum and strong mentorships, we will be able to build a strong future cybersecurity workforce that can keep our most sensitive information and networks safe from adversarial actors.

Reaching Cyberlandia

Most cybersecurity teams are dreaming of what I like to call Cyberlandia: The optimum state of cybersecurity readiness with happy employees who feel empowered to face whatever threats they encounter. Unfortunately, cybersecurity teams may be feeling like Cyberlandia is an impossible destination. COVID-19 has affected nearly every aspect of life, and cybersecurity practitioners, who already had daunting to-do lists, will still be expected to defend an even wider attack surface as most organizations continue to conduct business remotely.

Cybersecurity professionals must arm themselves with mentors spanning various departments to create a support system that encourages collaboration and leaders must grant their teams the flexibility to walk away from work when they need to. This also means cybersecurity leaders should be consistently checking in with their employees—via phone and video calls as employees continue to work from home—to ensure they are empowered to prioritize their own personal and mental health. 

Cybersecurity is high-stress and filled with high-risk discussions. A good leader will know how to disclose sensitive information in an effective way that limits this stress as much as possible so that teams can overcome the obstacles ahead, instead of being crushed by the pressure. Leaders must step up during difficult times and make strategic decisions. Decision-making can be uncomfortable, but by standing firm, leaders ultimately empower their teams to operate with a mindset of trust, collaboration and counsel, ensuring they can face challenges head-on with confidence that their leaders have their backs.

Even with the current challenges, Cyberlandia can become a reality, if we foster a culture centered on putting people first, strong employee performance and customer satisfaction. Most importantly, the principles of Cyberlandia will also help reduce the cybersecurity talent gap. By taking a unique look at new security hires, while reducing stress and creating a culture of trust for today’s security employees, we may have found the key to promoting and inspiring the exploration of cybersecurity careers. 

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Jon Check

Jon Check is senior director of Cyber Protection Solutions for Raytheon Intelligence & Space, a business of Raytheon Technologies. He leads the Raytheon Intelligence & Space team that delivers proactive cybersecurity solutions protecting organizations from the ever-evolving cybersecurity threat and delivering next-generation technology and enterprise solutions for customers across Raytheon Intelligence & Space’s cyber portfolio. Check joined Raytheon Intelligence & Space from CSRA Inc., where he was vice president of the digital solutions organization. He was responsible for direction, strategy and operations of the services provided from CSRA’s delivery centers. Prior to CSRA, Check was vice president of the solutions organization at Computer Sciences Corporation’s North American public sector and before that was executive operations manager of global business services for IBM within IBM’s public sector. In July 2019, he received a non-legislative citizen appointment from Virginia Speaker M. Kirkland Cox to the Secure and Resilient Commonwealth Panel, an advisory board in the Executive Branch of Virginia’s government. The panel was established in 2004 and its primary focus is on emergency management and homeland security within the Commonwealth to ensure that both state and local governments are prepared to address risks from man-made and natural disasters. Check serves as a board member for the National Cyber Security Alliance, the Red Hat strategic advisory board and AFCEA DC. He is an executive industry adviser to the University of South Florida’s Cybersecurity for Executives program. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in environmental science from the University of Virginia.

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