{"id":22600,"date":"2021-02-03T10:16:14","date_gmt":"2021-02-03T10:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/unbelievable-demand-cybersecurity-workers\/"},"modified":"2023-09-05T11:14:53","modified_gmt":"2023-09-05T11:14:53","slug":"unbelievable-demand-cybersecurity-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/future-of-work\/unbelievable-demand-cybersecurity-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unbelievable Demand for Cybersecurity Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Angela Gunn is fried. With three cases going and a fourth just getting started, this is one of those frantic periods when it feels as if she works in an ER or at a fire station rather than holding a staff position with a computer security firm.<\/p>\n\n

It\u2019s people like Gunn that organizations large and small call if they\u2019ve had a data breach or suspect they have. People in the industry \u2014 cybersecurity, if you\u2019d like, though Gunn\u2019s preference is information security, or \u201cinfo-sec\u201d for short \u2014 call this \u201cincident response.\u201d To my mind, though, they\u2019re the online world\u2019s firefighters: those who rush to put out the flames and then assess the damage.<\/p>\n\n

As an incident response consultant for British security firm BAE Systems, Gunn is in charge of assembling a small crew for each case. Typically, that includes an analyst who can pore over computer logs, a malware specialist, and those she dubs \u201cforensic workers, except without the formaldehyde smell and ripped-open chest cavities.\u201d That is, if she can find any live bodies to do the work.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cRight now, I\u2019d sell a right toe for a forensics guy,\u201d Gunn says. \u201cLike a lot of people in info-sec right now, we\u2019re agonizingly understaffed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

A 2015 report by job analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies found that postings for cybersecurity had grown more than three times faster than other information technology (IT) positions and roughly 12 times faster than all other jobs. The firm also reported that those working in cybersecurity on average earn nearly 10% more than others in IT.<\/p>\n\n

There\u2019s good reason behind the growth: Cybercrime caused an estimated $3 trillion in damages in 2015, according to research firm Cybersecurity Ventures. The company expects that figure to double to $6 trillion by 2021. Corporations face a \u201cdefender\u2019s dilemma,\u201d which Dave Weinstein, a security manager inside Google, summed up this way: \u201cThe defender has to be strong everywhere, every day. The attacker only has to win once.\u201d For each set of bad guys, the defense side needs veritable armies, beefing up armaments and rushing to the rescue at the first sign of an attack.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\u201cIf someone has six months to a year of work and when they came in for an interview, they didn\u2019t pee on the rug, they\u2019re going to make in the neighborhood of $85,000.\u201d<\/mark><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The march of technology, in other words, has created a huge demand for ethical hackers, or \u201cwhite hats\u201d: people skilled at using computers who can protect our systems and battle those with bad intentions. By now, any university offering a computer science degree invariably offers classes in security. The more forward-looking among them have created a dedicated computer security department and offer a bachelor\u2019s degree in cybersecurity. Still, businesses are having a hard time finding people to work computer security.<\/p>\n\n

At the end of 2018, for instance, there were more than 26,000 openings for cybersecurity analysts (average pay: $85,000 a year), according to CyberSeek, which is part of a program nested under the U.S. Department of Commerce. \u201cIf someone has six months to a year of work and when they came in for an interview, they didn\u2019t pee on the rug, they\u2019re going to make in the neighborhood of $85,000,\u201d Angela Gunn says. \u201cIf they have a special skill \u2014 if they have experience doing database scanning or maybe they worked as a programmer before moving to security \u2014 then they\u2019re going up to 110, 120, 125.\u201d For those with five or more years of experience, she said, the salaries start at $150,000. \u201cThere was never a cybersecurity job that I took where I was like, \u2018Man, I wish I could make more money,\u2019\u201d said Billy Rios, who worked for Microsoft and then Google before venturing off on his own.<\/p>\n\n

How crazy is the demand for quality people in info-sec? A security reporter I know was wearing a free T-shirt he had picked up at an industry event while waiting for a table at a San Francisco restaurant. A stranger struck up a conversation: \u201cMy company is hiring security people. You have a r\u00e9sum\u00e9?\u201d The on-the-spot recruiter worked for Square, a publicly traded mobile payments company worth in the tens of billions.<\/p>\n\n

All told, according to CyberSeek, just over 700,000 people were working cybersecurity for U.S.-based businesses and other organizations in 2018, not including 300,000-plus unfilled positions. The data point in 2017 that had people inside the cybersecurity world buzzing was a prediction by\u00a0Cybersecurity Ventures<\/a>\u00a0that by 2021, there will be roughly 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs across the globe.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a cool job,\u201d security entrepreneur Allison Wong tells young women exploring options for their tech careers. \u201cIf you stay in it for four years and show you\u2019re good, you\u2019ll make in the six figures. And not just the low six figures.\u201d Plus, one more advantage, she tells them: \u201cIt\u2019s not a job you can get bored at. If you get bored, you\u2019re doing something wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Copyright \u00a9 2019 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. From the forthcoming book\u00a0<\/em>Becoming an Ethical Hacker<\/a>\u00a0by Gary Rivlin to be published by Simon & Schuster, Inc. Printed by permission.<\/em><\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The march of technology, in other words, has created a huge demand for ethical hackers. By 2021, there will be roughly 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs across the globe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1040,"featured_media":18601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[712,127,1306],"ppma_author":[3942],"class_list":["post-22600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-future-of-work","tag-cybercrime","tag-cybersecurity","tag-ethical-hacking"],"authors":[{"term_id":3942,"user_id":1040,"is_guest":0,"slug":"gary-rivlin","display_name":"Gary Rivlin","avatar_url":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/Gary-Rivlin-150x150.jpeg","user_url":"https:\/\/garyrivlin.wpengine.com\/","last_name":"Rivlin","first_name":"Gary","job_title":"","description":"Gary Rivlin, a Pulitzer prize winner in 2017, is a Journalist, Author, and Editor. He was with The New York Times Magazine, Wired, Newsweek, and American Bar Association Journal. He worked as a staff writer at the Chicago Reader. Author (9 books and counting) and magazine writer, he has published articles in The New York Times Magazine, Intercept, New Yorker.com, and Mother Jones."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1040"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22600"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32314,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22600\/revisions\/32314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22600"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=22600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}