Sponsored by Baldwin Wallace University: Cultivating the next generation of cybersecurity professionals

Responding to record cyber attacks

Cybersecurity is a business imperative that is as essential to an organization’s short- and long-term viability as its financial and legal well-being. The volume and sophistication of cybersecurity threats continue to grow. Malware and viruses are still a concern, as are new types of attacks, from hackers inserting malicious code into software or supply chain infiltrations to compromising critical IT infrastructure and phishing campaigns targeting employees. According to Gartner research published in early 2022, 88% of boards view cybersecurity as a business risk rather than solely a technical IT problem. About 13% of boards have instituted cybersecurity-specific board committees that a dedicated director oversees. Below are some other trends in the modern cybersecurity landscape.

CYBERSECURITY DEMAND AND EARNING POTENTIAL RISES

Currently, more than 1 million professionals are members of the cybersecurity workforce in the U.S. Yet, there is also a considerably high number of job openings within the field—over 714,500, a sign of the ever-rising demand for cybersecurity professionals.

States like California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Texas are considered “hot spots” for cybersecurity jobs, as they have roughly 25,000 to 83,000 job openings. As the demand for cybersecurity professionals continues to increase, so is the money they’ll be earning. For example, federal cybersecurity workers can earn as much as $255,800 annually. Meanwhile, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), information security analysts’ annual mean wage was $107,580 in 2020, nearly twice the mean of all U.S. occupations combined.

Additionally, between 2020 and 2030, the employment of information security analysts has been predicted to increase by 33%, which is faster than the average for every occupation, according to the BLS. And, on a global basis, the total aggregate of unfilled cybersecurity jobs rose by 350% from 2013 to 2021, as 3.5 million positions were available last year, according to Cybersecurity Ventures.

INDUSTRIES HIRING CYBERSECURITY PROFESSIONALS

To meet the continuously increasing demand for cybersecurity professionals—for instance, the International Information System Security Certification Consortium projects the worldwide cybersecurity workforce must grow by 89%—a wide array of industries will likely be hiring in the near future, such as the following:

Banking and finance: Banks, along with the finance industry as a whole, are major targets for identity theft, leading to the necessity for a surging cybersecurity workforce.

Federal government: Federal cybersecurity workers are earning up to $255,800 each year, as cyber attacks on confidential information remain a significant issue for the federal government.

Retail: Much like the banking and finance industries, the retail industry remains a popular target for identity theft as well.

Technology: As IT security in technology companies remains pressing too, states like California and Florida are expected to be key focal points for cybersecurity employees.

THE MOST POPULAR JOBS FOR CYBERSECURITY PROFESSIONALS

As professionals prepare for the next chapter of their cybersecurity careers, or enter the field for the first time after earning their degrees, they have a wide array of jobs to consider applying for, according to St. Thomas University and TechRepublic:

• Chief information security officer (CISO)
• Cybersecurity analyst, architect, consultant, engineer and project manager
• Ethical hacker
• Incident response coordinator
• Information security manager
• Network architect
• Penetration tester
• Security analyst, architect, awareness trainer and engineer
• Systems administrator
• Vulnerability management specialist

SOURCES: Bloomberg, Bureau of Labor Statistics, CyberSeek, Fortune, St. Thomas University, TechRepublic, The University of Tulsa

Compiled by Chris Lewis, Crain’s Content Studio-Cleveland

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