14 DAY TRIAL // (ISC)2 has released the 2013 Global Information Security Workforce Study (GISWS), a report based on the insight provided by over 12,000 security professionals from all over the world. GISWS is the result of a collaboration with Booz Allen Hamilton, being conducted by Frost & Sullivan.
According to the study, hacking (56%), cyber terrorism (44%) and hacktivism (43%) are among the top concerns for organizations.
The figures also show that 15% of the respondents don’t know how long it would take them to recover from an attack, despite the fact that 75% of them say service downtime ranks high in their priorities list.
28% of respondents said they believed their organization was capable of recovering from a targeted attack within a day. 41% of them said they could do it in a week or less.
While most information security professionals are aware of the threats, 56% of them revealed that their security organizations were short-staffed.
“Now, more than ever before, we’re seeing an economic ripple effect occurring across the globe as a result of the dire shortage of qualified information security professionals we’ve been experiencing in recent years,” said W. Hord Tipton, CISSP-ISSEP, CAP, CISA, executive director of (ISC)².
“Underscored by the study findings, this shortage is causing a huge drag on organizations. More and more enterprises are being breached, businesses are not able to get things done, and customer data is being compromised,” Tipton added.
“Given the severity of cyber espionage, hactivism, and nation-state threats, the time is now for the public and private sectors to join forces and close this critical gap. We must focus on building a skilled and qualified security workforce that is equipped to handle today’s and tomorrow’s most sophisticated cyber threats.”
Here is the complete 2013 Global Information Security Workforce Study.