EDUCATION


 

EDUCATION AS A KEY FACTOR IN THE PROCESS OF BUILDING CYBERSECURITY

Over the last few decades, we moved a significant part of our multidimensional activities to the cyberspace. Aside from the obvious benefits, this process poses a huge risk for the entire civilization. The number of hacker attacks, implementations of information systems, as well as risks associated with the operation of cyberworld is rapidly increasing. In building cybersecurity we cannot sacrifice the benefits of digital, crosslinked and automatised reality. We need to catch up with “the bad guys.” To do so, we dramatically need cybersecurity specialists. This need is reflecting in growing demand for cybertalents – highly qualified cyber personnel who will be able to respond to the increasingly sophisticated forms of cyberattacks (cybersecurity IT specialists) and who will be responsible for creating the architecture of cybersecurity (i.a. lawyers, political scientists, administration employees). Therefore, the key factor in the process of providing cybersecurity in public and private sectors is to adapt the education system this new long-term challenges as well as to the market needs to educate more and more cyberspecialists. It is not possible today to fill the ever-growing gap in employment in the ICT sector, neither the education of specialists who would be responsible for adapting the legislation and institutions of state in cybersecurity or for building international co-operation in this area.

There is a need for IT security specialists everywhere. Without them companies expose themselves to a multimillion loss, arising from incidents on the network. This high demand for cybertalents also occurs in companies in the critical infrastructure sector, banks, defence, professional service centres and automated industries and manufacturing. It is a particularly important issue as cyberattacks on critical infrastructure facilities endanger national security and can be elements of both the classic and the hybrid form of war.

 

CYBERSECURITY DEMAND GROWS BY INDUSTRY SECTORS

Source: Job Market Intelligence: Cybersecurity Jobs, Burning Glass Technologies

The shortage of IT workers for example in Poland is very high and is up to 40 thousand people. In the entire European Union – according to the data published by the European Commission – the demand for professional ICT workers in the IT sector across many sectors in Europe is growing at a rate of approx. 3% annually despite the crisis[1] while the number vacancies for computer scientists can currently reach up to 300 thousand, and it could be up to 825,000 unfilled vacancies for ICT professionals by 2020[2].

[1] Working Paper: Digital Economy - Facts & Figures, European Commission, p. 3 [online] .http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/resources/documents/taxation/gen_info/good_governance_matters/digital/2014-03-13_fact_figures.pdf (access: 10.12.2015).

[2]European Commission, [online] http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/grand-coalition--digital-jobs#Article (access: 20.12.2015).

 

CYBERSEC HUB addresses this very important issue of cybersecurity talents gap, concentrating part of its actions on:

  • Education of word-class cybertalents and concentration of expert knowledge on cybersecurity (supported by the academia and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education) through establishemnt of a programme for the best graduates at the technical universities in Kraków.
  • Creation of educational programme covering essential cybersecurity skills that would enable to educate cyber-aware managers, economists and social scientists.
  • Establishment of the interdisciplinary Research and Innovation Centre on Cybersecurity that would merge technical know-how with sociological, political, philosphical and economic perspectives.

Learn more about cybersecurity talents shortage and ways of addressing it in the analysis by Izabela Albrycht, Chairperson of the Board of the Kosciuszko Institute and the Chair of the CYBERSEC Organising Committee, in the European Cybersecurity Journal >>