Editor’s Note: Cyber attacks are increasingly impacting businesses and causing downstream impacts in local communities and quality of life. Meanwhile, staffing shortages in cybersecurity are severely hampering organizations large and small across all verticals and industries. Download Bridging the Cybersecurity Skills Gap, an eBook offering real-world strategies for organizations that need to staff up their Security Operations program now.
What Is the Cybersecurity Skills Gap?
The cybersecurity staffing shortage—sometimes referred to as the cybersecurity skills gap—is placing organizations at significant risk of attack. When an attack happens, the lack of skilled staff hampers the organization’s ability to quickly detect it. The longer it takes to detect, the greater the impact and the recovery process takes longer and costs more.
With 359K open Information Security jobs unfilled in the U.S. right now, and a decade-plus 0% cybersecurity unemployment rate from 2011-2021, this gap is a real problem, requiring real-world solutions to solve cyber security challenges without adding headcount. On an average, a security operations setup has 40 odd tools in their stack that require configuration, maintenance and monitoring on a continual basis and adds further complexity for security leaders.
What Are the Risk Impacts of the Cybersecurity Skills Gap?
If the cybersecurity skills gap is a virus, then its symptoms would be analyst burnout, alert fatigue, lack of visibility across the organization’s infrastructure, and an inability to sufficiently manage risk. These symptoms cannot be eliminated overnight, but there are real solutions that can provide relief to overtaxed, understaffed security teams.
Many organizations have turned to managed security services providers (MSSPs) to help with the staffing shortages only to have more alerts being dumped on them. Managed security providers have caused more stress by sending anything their tools detect as anomalous to their short-staffed customers. In most cases, there is no correlation, curation of the alerts and the organizations are left to play a whack-a-mole with alerts.
Solving the Cybersecurity Skills Gap with Managed Detection and Response
An effective way to solve the cybersecurity skills gap problem in Security Operations is to partner with a Managed Services provider that specializes in Managed Detection and Response (MDR).
An experienced and customer focused MDR partner can support SecOps and SOC activities with 27/7/365 expert monitoring of the environment. But not all MDR providers are created equal. A true MDR partner will use best-in-class technology that can collect massive amounts of data in real-time,correlates every event across the environment to reduce alert volume , detect advanced attacks, and mitigate the impact of threats with efficient response . Beyond monitoring, a MDR partner can help improve the overall security program year over year.
The cybersecurity skills gap is a real issue facing every organization. Deploying more tools isn’t a solution when there are not enough skilled people to support those. Working with a MDR provider can help organizations not only detect and mitigate threats in their environment but measure and improve the efficacy of their security operations.
Learn How to Staff Up Your Security Operations with Deepwatch
To learn more about how organizations can deal with the impacts of too few skilled security staff in a world with far too many threats, download the eBook Bridging the SecOps Skills Gap today. Interested in learning more with one of our expert Solutions Architects? Contact Us today to discuss your requirements for an improved Security program you can achieve now.
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