The churn of information security staff is even more dangerous than the shortfalls in quality and quantity

 
By Philip Virgo on October 20, 2014
 
You might like to scroll down and read the last paragraph of this blog entry first.   "The Consultant" was first published in 1978 during the run up to a previous "IT Skills Crisis". It was based on a cautionary industry case study. Think what has changed since. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Last year a Frost and Sullivan survey indicated that chief information security officers around the world were more concerned about staff shortages than hacktivism or cyber-terrorism, with over half having under-staffed departments and demand for skills growing at 10% per annum. 
We have had regular IT Skills crises over the past 50 years but the overall shortage has rarely been more than 15% (1987-9 "crisis", "cured" by the 1991 recession: page 17 of 1996 IT Skills Trends report). The 2014 RSA Conference was told that the current shortfall for Information Security staff is 25% and recent US legislation cited a vacancy rate in the Department of Homeland Security alone of 22%. Hence the sharp rise in US spend on cyber security skills programmes. 
 
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