Cybersecurity, network, and cloud are all top of mind for government agencies today, along with the concerning lack of IT talent. According to Gartner, the number of unfilled cybersecurity roles is expected to grow to 1.5 million by the end of 2020. This shortage not only strains current teams but introduces a serious vulnerability for agencies that have issues simply too large to tackle with their current staff. To grow the cyber IT talent pool, agencies are partnering to nurture potential talent. Read on to learn more.
Earlier this month, government agencies and private sector companies announced they would be partnering to build a cybersecurity talent pipeline to address the lack of cybersecurity talent in the U.S. The Cyber Talent Initiative which includes Mastercard, Microsoft, the Partnership for Public Service, and 11 government agencies will offer recent grads cyber experience while helping to reduce student loan debt.
“The Army is pleased to join the Cybersecurity Talent Initiative and partner with top companies and universities across the country to develop cybersecurity talent and provide them with opportunities that help support our nation’s defense,” said Brig. Gen. Jennifer Buckner, director of headquarters for the Department of the Army’s Cyber, Electronic Warfare and Information Operations.
Read more here.
Soft Skills for Federal IT Pros
From cybersecurity to network issues, today’s federal IT pro has a broad range of skills – but what about soft skills? “The need for this type of multidisciplinary skillset is only increasing. As environments get more complex and teams grow, federal IT pros will need a broader range of skills—specifically, “soft skills” or “people skills.” These types of additional skills have the potential to help solidify job security and help make the federal IT pro more invaluable,” said Mav Turner, Director of Product Strategy at SolarWinds.
Soft skills include communication, collaboration, and adaptability. These skills work together to create a desirable candidate that can develop and grow with the changing IT field.
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According to Trend Micro Research, 69 percent of organizations agree that automating cybersecurity tasks using AI would reduce the impact of the current lack of security talent. “There’s a real and critical shortage of cybersecurity people. But there’s a fix for it today,” said Greg Young, vice president for cybersecurity at Trend.
“AI and machine learning can reduce the workload today on the people we have, by handling the low-value tasks we currently use our high-value people for. Next is lowering the tsunami of low-value alerts we throw at teams,” he said. “More security products adding more alerts is not helpful, instead when we add smarter and integrated security it should have more intelligence and be better integrated, ideally reducing junk alerts.”
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