3.5 Million Unfilled Cybersecurity Jobs By 2021

Budgeting for cybersecurity needs is hard now, but it will soon be a lot harder. There is a critical shortage of talent, and unlike the economy as a whole, organizations with security needs are responding the old fashioned way, by raising salaries. Security budgets are trending up. They are expected to increase by nearly 20 percent in the next two years. Nevertheless, with an unemployment rate of zero for cybersecurity experts, that’s not projected to be enough. The average security budget is currently $651,260, much of it allocated to tools such as IDS/IPS and SIEM. Blogging at Threatstack, Mark Moore quotes an expert who suggests hiring people for the way they think, rather than the tools they’ve used. “We want people who can work in high-performing organizations, who know how to break things on purpose to fix them and make them better,” he says. Rather than hiring people with picture-perfect backgrounds, focus on hiring problem solvers who can understand big picture concepts and learn tools quickly.