A survey on the shortage of cyber security personnel, being conducted in partnership with Kaspersky, has gone live on ITWeb.

Its objective is to examine the situation with cyber security skills shortage in South Africa and what organisations are doing to mitigate against this risk.

Brandon Muller, technical expert and consultant with Kaspersky in MEA, says, “Addressing the lack of cyber security staff in Africa – and the potential cyber risks this can lead to – requires further investigation. As cyberattacks become more sophisticated, and more resources are required to analyse the huge amount of data gathered every day, organisations feel the need for advanced security solutions and services that can deal with this growing complexity in real-time, 24/7.

“Outsourcing cyber security solutions can be an option in this case: MDR (managed detection and response) and threat intelligence services can help organisations to cope with the lack of cyber security staff and skills, while providing additional expertise from leading security experts.”

There has already been some research on the shortage of cybersecurity personnel in the region. According to 2022 research by a professional services firm, 75% of companies in Africa encountered challenges in recruiting and retaining qualified cyber professionals. Only one in three companies had access to a sufficient talent pool. More than 50% of businesses that have recently fallen victim to cybercrime still lacked confidence in the effectiveness of their cyber security incident response team’s action during a major cyber security incident. The survey that is being conducted by ITWeb in partnership with Kaspersky intends to investigate the issue further.

While the existing statistics are startling, they are not all too surprising given the pressures that companies – and likewise IT and security teams – have been under with the rapid pace of digital adoption and business transformation in recent years. This is also continuously compounded by an ever evolving and expanding threat landscape.

To this end, the survey asks respondents whether their organisation has experienced a cyber security incident, and what it did about it. It also probes how the information security function is managed in their organisation, whether the business is experiencing a cyber security skills shortage and whether it could benefit the business to expand its cyber security team.

We hope you’ll be able set aside a few minutes of your time to participate in the survey, and stand a chance to win a lucky draw prize, a Takealot voucher to the value of R3 000.

The detailed results of the survey, and the prize winner, will be published on ITWeb.

To play your role in compiling this trends report about the cyber security skills shortage, complete the survey.

Survey examines cyber security staff shortage in SA