The internet has made it possible for millions of users world wide to access information including the latest in every field. Internet has changed the way of life. It has made its impact on every aspect of life paving way for a holistic growth. However there seems to be a sudden surge for security talent worldwide. The surge has emanated as a result of increased levels of hacking incidents witnessed across the nations and to handle the waves of cyber attacks emanating from adversaries across the world. Increased incidents has also thrown open the prevalent weakness amongst the various cyber establishments. There are multiple angles to the excessive visibility and increased attention on the security and in particular cyber security domain. It is essential to understand the background.
As evidenced, the cyber security segment has started expanding with specializations in access control systems, cryptography, web security, etc. With the emergence of facile techniques and out of the box new generation attack contrivances, cyber installations worldwide are more exposed to attacks. It is observed that the new generation intrusions are more hyperborean and deceptive, with
attackers emerging to be stealthier and more evasive. The techniques exhibited by such attackers are highly innovative and exceptionally creative. Individuals have identified multi-spectral techniques for breaching personal information,
including PDF files embedded with viruses, which was considered to be immune. Cyber Security is apposite with National Security as Computer
Networking, which is thin-skinned to cyber attacks, has emerged as the fortitude of
critical infrastructure of the country says CDAC.
Another tangential development
witnessed in the recent years is the increase in security management
programs generating individuals who are considered to be capable of advising the organizations on the need for
security policies. Called as consultants, such professionals are invited for advising enterprises on evaluating security postures and security policies. Such policies may not be of more use since the policies call for advanced implementation skills. The consultants are today forced to supplement their policies with requisite technical implementation skills thus forcing them to move as a team. The policies need to be supplemented with proportional talent with hands
on experience to implement and mandate the polices at an enterprise level. However the lack of
such implementation talent is widening the security gap. The government has come out in public on the shortage of trained man power though Nations worldwide have enough number of certified management security professionals.
Due to lack of clarity on the job roles and the requisite basic touchstones, various certification programs have been contemplated as the entry criteria by the HR community there by adding to the woe of job seekers and pushing them to opt for certification programs. In order to provide competent personnel and resources to engage and stop these threats, institutions of higher education are expected to witness the bigger picture of fierce cyber security threats that inflicts more
damage to the cyber infrastructure. This is viewed more than a hacker taking over someone's email login.
The academic programs which were under the notion of security equals the study of cryptography have started changing their views. Academic programs that did emphasize cryptography have changed their assumptions to include countering sniffing, denial-of-service attacks, areas of cyber-physical attacks, protection of heterogeneous systems with new generation techniques, and real-time security data analysis with applied big data techniques. The sought after phrase "eyebrow-raising talent shortfall in cyber security" has raised question marks on growth of computing industry at large and data security in particular. It is a genuine reflection, on the state of affair in this specialized domain, especially with the lack of talent pool capable of designing new generation cyber tools to at least understand the adversaries.
The academic programs which were under the notion of security equals the study of cryptography have started changing their views. Academic programs that did emphasize cryptography have changed their assumptions to include countering sniffing, denial-of-service attacks, areas of cyber-physical attacks, protection of heterogeneous systems with new generation techniques, and real-time security data analysis with applied big data techniques. The sought after phrase "eyebrow-raising talent shortfall in cyber security" has raised question marks on growth of computing industry at large and data security in particular. It is a genuine reflection, on the state of affair in this specialized domain, especially with the lack of talent pool capable of designing new generation cyber tools to at least understand the adversaries.
Of late Universities have started realizing the need of the hour curriculum and have changed their review cycles with respect to security education. Some of the Universities which have started realizing the needs include Hindustan University, SRM University etc. These universities have started Security programs, incorporating the latest needs. ITMR, an institute for learning and research, managed by professionals is currently delivering a densely packed six months Security diploma program approved by University. More such programs are the need of the hour to respond to the huge deficit.
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Dr.BM
