EXPERT CALLS FOR RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING OF MORE CYBER SECURITY PROFESSIONALS

Sky-rocketing demand will lead to a global shortfall of 3.5 million trained cyber security operatives by next year, an industry expert has warned.

Ian Fish is Chairman of the Information Security Specialist Group at Swindonbased BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT.

“Since 2014, the number of UK organisations reporting a problematic cyber skills shortage has more than doubled from 23 per cent to 51 per cent,” he said. “By 2021 we face a global shortfall of 3.5 million cyber security jobs.

“Large organisations will take steps to protect their ICT systems and will have in-house cyber security experts, but SMEs may have more difficulty in attracting and keeping the requisite expertise.

“For all industry, commerce and government there are problems in recruiting from what is a vast shortfall in expertise and unfortunately the gap between need and provision is getting wider every year.

“The training available at technical, undergraduate and postgraduate level has increased massively over the last few years but still the sector suffers from the same lack in takeup of STEM-related training and courses as the rest of science and engineering.”

BCS is at the forefront of delivering training and professional standards in the field.

In November it hosted its first-ever live cyber security eSport - the Cyber Crime Cup – at Cyber Crime 2019 in Manchester, with hacking teams from UK universities competing for a trophy.

The Wannacry cyberattack which hit NHS computer systems in 2017, the private customer data leak at British Airways in 2018, and cyber attacks against the Labour Party’s website during the 2019 general election campaign demonstrate the importance of building a phalanx of qualified cyber security professionals.

“Many approaches are being tried to address this problem,” said Ian, “including, most notably and hopefully most likely to have an effect, a concerted effort to tap into the diversity and latent talent of the UK population.”

Cheltenham software engineering specialist sells to CACI

Cheltenham-based software engineering specialist Deep3 has been bought by CACI Limited, the national information systems and marketing company.

Deep3 provides secure-by-design application, cloud development, data engineering and digital transformation services to clients in the national security sector as well as defence and law enforcement.

Richard Yorke, co-founder and CEO of Deep3, said: “Joining forces with CACI gives us greater capacity, capability and support to provide scalable and adaptive solutions to organisations of national importance.”

Malvern firm chosen to work with partner, the National Cyber Security Centre

Cyber certification company IASME has been chosen by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), to be its sole Cyber Essentials Partner from next April.

Based at the Wyche Innovation Centre in Malvern, IASME is a specialist in certification for cyber security and information assurance. It has been an Accreditation Body for the Cyber Essentials Scheme since its inception in 2014.

The Cyber Essentials Scheme has so far helped to protect more than 30,000 UK businesses from the most commonly seen cyber-threats. The scheme was developed to protect organisations against low-level threats.

Naming IASME as the single delivery partner will streamline and grow the scheme and ensure it keeps pace with the changing nature of the cyber security threat.