“Over the last two decades, Ireland has built a global reputation for being a leader in cybersecurity”, explains Misha Glenny, a security expert. The world’s leading security software companies are well-established in Ireland, including Symantec, McAfee & IBM. Alongside these multinationals, Ireland’s own cyber firms have emerged as international players, such as Pablosec, Integrity360 & HCS.
Cyber Skills Gap
However, there is a global cyber skills gap and according to Fortinet's 2024 Global Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report, an estimated 4 million professionals are needed to fill this gap. This is having an impact on organisations, with 87% of respondents stating that they can partially attribute a breach due to a lack of cyber skills.
Ireland's Approach to Combatting the Cyber Skills Gap
The Technology Ireland ICT Skillnet conference in Dublin, “Filling the Cybersecurity Skills Gap” heard that no one measure will be successful in addressing the skills gap. However, in an attempt to address the gap, a security skills initiative was launched in October 2018. This initiative targeted 5,000 people to be trained in cybersecurity skills, with a further 1,500 having skills certified. In the 2019-2021 timeframe, 1,000 companies were targeted for an awareness programme, with 4,000 for skills development. James B Alvilhiera, worldwide sales leader and cybersecurity expert stated that “Ireland is not unique in having a skills gap, they are unique because they have a government addressing it and putting money behind the policy”.
He also stated that universities must also cope to keep up with the speed of change in the industry and fix the cyber skills gap by condensing the usual 4 years into 16-week courses to begin to produce people with immediately applicable skills. Although universities are not currently providing these condensed courses, the Institute of Technology in Carlow (one of the largest technology colleges in Ireland) created the country’s first BSc in Cybercrime and IT Security in 2016, while the Cork Institute of Technology now offers a master’s degree in Information Security and has close ties with firms in the Cork cyber cluster. However, interestingly the director of Product Management at ProtectWise, Kacy Beitel states that you don’t have to have a degree in cybersecurity or an abundance of certifications to land a job in the field.
Carmel Somers, organisation psychologist and talent manager for IBM and the chair of the Cybersecurity Skills Initiative (CSI) concludes that to combat the cyber skills gap, businesses first need to acknowledge that a cyber skills gap, particularly in cybersecurity, is a business issue and not an IT one.
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Written by Michelle Corry