The Cybersecurity Worker Shortage is Massive: How to Train Students Today and Get Them Working Tomorrow
The great need for cybersecurity professionals is worldwide and growing. Malicious attackers, be they rogue nations, organized crime or freelance crooks, are developing new tools and techniques every day. Yet there is a huge gap between available cybersecurity jobs and qualified individuals who can combat bad actors. Read on to learn why this gap persists and how educators can start to work toward closing the gap through innovative teaching tools and techniques.
The Cybersecurity Worker Shortage
The cybersecurity professional organization (ISC)2 recently reported that there are 400,000 open cybersecurity jobs in the U.S. alone and around 2.7 million worldwide. They also polled IT professionals and found that 63 percent of reporting organizations are short of cybersecurity staff. In addition, 60 percent said they were at moderate or extreme risk for compromising attacks.
Experienced cybersecurity professionals cited lack of skilled workers as their number one job concern. Some organizations address the problem by upgrading technologies, but (ISC)2 insists that companies must put the personnel in place before they can leverage technology effectively. Those personnel need the right training.
Addressing the Cybersecurity Gap
More college graduates in cybersecurity would help address this lack of skilled cybersecurity professionals. Only about three percent of recent American graduates have degrees in computer and information sciences, and only some will choose a job in cybersecurity.
But according to a computer science professor from Carnegie Mellon, the problem isn’t so much a lack of available programs as a shortage of students who choose cybersecurity education. Students are gravitating toward tech in droves—primarily high-profile categories such as video game development, or engineering—but only 9 percent of millennials are interested in a career in cybersecurity, according to a 2018 study.
Professors and educators need tools and content to make cybersecurity more accessible to today’s learners.
How Cloud Labs Fills the Training Gap Through Innovation
The industry isn’t going to staff the available cybersecurity jobs without innovation in educational practices. That's where Cloud Labs from Jones & Bartlett Learning comes in. This platform offers multifaceted training programs complete with syllabi, textbooks, assignments and labs.
What especially makes this platform stand out is the immersive mock IT infrastructure offered in Cloud Labs. These labs consist of virtual machines and real software where students gain hands-on experience working from any browser. They’ll be faced with the kinds of real-world challenges that pose risk to their companies.
The labs can be used with or without the textbooks and other materials. There are instructor dashboards and a report process that facilitate mentoring and evaluation. There are three difficulty levels within Cloud Labs: hands-on instruction, advanced learning, and a challenges and analysis section for students as they advance.
Jones & Bartlett Learning’s Cloud Labs are aligned with major certifications including:
- Security+ — This is a basic CompTIA certification that addresses threat assessment and risk management.
- Network+ — This is another foundational CompTIA that covers network infrastructure and operations.
- Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) —This is another advanced cert that addresses threats and how to mitigate them.
This solution also maps to widely used curriculum frameworks such as CAE-CD Knowledge Units, the NICE Framework and CSEC 2017.
Can Cybersecurity Be Taught Remotely?
Not only is it possible to teach cybersecurity remotely; using virtual labs in cybersecurity education has benefits. The field by its nature lends itself to remote learning. Cybersecurity training took root in online elements such as cloud computing and various types of virtualization. Additionally, cybersecurity professionals do a lot of their work remotely, including mitigation and response to emergencies, so it makes sense for them to learn in the same way that they’ll work when the stakes are high.
There are additional benefits to delivering cybersecurity education online:
- Because this learning can be done anywhere, the student can choose to learn where distractions are minimal.
- Remote workers can pursue training without leaving the place where they work.
- Students can spend as much or as little time as they need on any training unit.
- Materials are updated continuously, not just at the end of classroom training or a semester. Course improvement can be real-time based on student experience and feedback.
- Most IT workers today suffer from a time crunch. Remote cybersecurity education is easier to fit into schedules.