STONES of PHILLY

Cybersecurity is not just about a man in a hoodie sitting in a dimly lit building with computers and wires strewn around trying to break into a bank’s server in a country on the other side of the world. There is much more to cybersecurity than what is portrayed in the media, movies and popular culture. Cybersecurity is about securing anything that is digital and that statement alone says more than anything. Your TV network, your mobile phone, your bank account, your city’s traffic lights, your state’s power system controls, your GPS satellites, your country’s space exploration probes and its nuclear power plant controls, everything that is advanced in today’s age, is digital in one way or another. And everything that is digital is vulnerable to manipulation by bad hackers. It is this, that makes cybersecurity a vital component of our life. 

Why cybersecurity is so important?

The digital revolution and the internet revolution paved the way for hundreds of thousands of innovations to make man’s life better. Every day, all around the world, millions of software developers wake up and go to their jobs where they write software programs for existing and new technologies in the world. It is important to note that all these new technologies and software are not really hack-proof since their creators are not always trained in the area of cyber security themselves. This results in thousands of new software and tech gadgets landing in the market from where people can buy them off and use them to integrate their operations and ease their lives a little more than yesterday. Not to mention that these new innovations are filled with loopholes and can be exploited by hackers to enter the user’s private space and steal confidential information. 

Thus, cybersecurity plays as important of a role in the world of innovative technology as the technology itself. Without adequate and strong security guarding the systems, every new innovation represents a potential risk to its end users. 

Where is cybersecurity necessary?

From the basic devices to the most advanced ones, cybersecurity is an essential component of the entire digital world. Governments need cybersecurity experts to ward off cyber warfare with other nations. Energy, finance, communication, transportation, IT, education, military, law enforcement, healthcare, public infrastructure, and every other possible sector that is not mentioned earlier, requires cybersecurity experts to keep bad actors and incidents at a distance. 

Apart from this, cybersecurity experts are also required to respond to and investigate cyber crimes and incidents, a set of skills that is taught through the well known ECIH and CHFI course.  

Does the world have enough cybersecurity experts?

No. It does not. Quite frankly, all the above-mentioned sectors have a serious problem of understaffed cybersecurity departments. Currently, a ransomware attack takes place every 11 seconds in the business world. And in general, hackers attack every 39 seconds, that is 2,244 times a day. Emails continue to be the source of most malware, and ransomware continues to cost the most damage to organisations, especially to the healthcare industry. 

At the bottom of all these facts lies the problem of the extreme shortage of skilled professionals. There are currently 2.8 million cybersecurity professionals at work around the world, while 4.07 million job positions remain unfilled. The desperate need for skilled workers can be deduced from the fact that these job postings have grown by a boggling 94% in just six years. As a result, cybersecurity has become a highly valuable career opportunity and Certified Ethical Hacker Certification has become one of the top 15 most demanded certifications in the IT world. 

What’s even more interesting is the fact that compared to the entire IT job market, cybersecurity job postings have increased by a staggering 300%. This means that more than data scientists and computer programmers, the world is clearly screaming for more people to take up cybersecurity as a career and bridge the insane, dangerous gap.