Europe faces shortage of 350,000 cyber security professionals by 2022 - Comment from Smoothwall
June 2017 by Claire Stead, Online Safety Expert, Smoothwall
Following the news today that Europe faces a shortage of 350,000 cyber security professionals by 2022, Claire Stead, Online Safety Expert, Smoothwall, comments:
"News of a huge gap in cyber security experts in Europe by 2022 is at best
concerning and at worst societally destructive. Hospitals, schools, businesses and
governments will all feel the effect of a depleted cyber security force if this hole
isn’t filled properly. As technology becomes an increasingly important and prevalent
staple of society, threat actors will constantly find new ways of hacking the system
of every organisation - which is why cyber security experts are the girders that
keep up the cyber web structure. Without the adequate number of cyber experts,
security breaches may well become the norm for our National Health Service,
businesses and elections.
"The everyday consumer will feel the effect of a depleted cyber security system too;
their savings in a bank could be compromised, their personal data stolen from
hospital records for ’social engineering’ (the gradual collection of a person’s data
over time) or addresses and payment details stolen from a business’ database. Data
exposure was one of the chief security concerns within the report, which is why
companies must build a layered defence spanning encryption, firewalls, web filtering
and ongoing threat monitoring to protect their most valuable asset: data. People
need to be incentivised to train in cyber security and have the opportunity to get
the training they need to make the world a more secure place - there’s surely no
better time than now."