Mitigating cyber risk in the face of skills shortages

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 cyber crime still lacked confidence in the effectiveness of their cybersecurity incident response team’s action during a major cybersecurity incident.

While these 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.

Addressing the shortage of skilled cybersecurity staff in Africa – and the potential cyber risks this leaves – requires further investigation. As cyber attacks 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 services that can deal with this growing complexity in real-time, 24/7.

Outsourcing cybersecurity 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 cybersecurity staff and skills, while providing additional expertise from leading security experts.

Kaspersky is currently running a survey on ITWeb to further examine the situation with cybersecurity skills shortage in the country and what organisations are doing to mitigate against this risk. Experts will share the latest data and insights and communicate possible ways of solving the problem.

Join us at this complimentary webinar where Kaspersky industry experts will present the survey results and discuss the cybersecurity environment in South Africa.