The Cybersecurity Workforce of Tomorrow

Michael Nizich serves as the Director of the Entrepreneurship and Technology Innovation Centre and holds the position of Adjunct Associate Professor of Computer Science at the New York Institute of Technology. Dr. Nizich boasts over 25 years of extensive professional experience in the field of information technology, having occupied leadership roles in IT within both private and public sector organisations across various industries.

The Future Cybersecurity Workforce explores the present-day prerequisites for cybersecurity professionals and scrutinises potential shifts in these roles as cyberattacks by hackers, criminals, and adversarial nations grow in complexity.

Here is an excerpt of The Cybersecurity Workforce of Tomorrow by Michael Nizich.

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The field of cybersecurity – the protection of electronic data – offers one of the fastest-growing job markets today. As the sector grows in importance there will be a rapidly growing demand for qualified analysts, cryptographers, engineers, architects, managers, and executive leaders. The Cybersecurity Workforce of Tomorrow discusses the current requirements of the cybersecurity worker and analyses the ways in which these roles may change in the future as attacks from hackers, criminals and enemy states become increasingly sophisticated.

The author’s predictions are based on the inevitable changes that will come for the cybersecurity industry including more rigid federal, state, and global security requirements and accountability The increasing complexity and quality of cyber-attacks and the skillsets of the attackers The expansion and acceptance of the dark web as a marketplace for stolen data The increasing use of cyber-attacks in political and economic confrontations between nation states Experienced practitioner and academic Michael Nizich examines the current and future human resources requirements of the cybersecurity market. His focus on workforce preparation, education and emerging technologies is essential reading for executives and cybersecurity professionals alike.

Cybersecurity continues to be one of the fastest growing and expanding fields and is yet again forecasted for near-exponential growth in new hires, corporate and government investment, and corporate and government losses from preventable breaches. Yet, we still do not have a comprehensive and synergetic understanding of the cybersecurity ecosystem between industry and government security leaders, the cybersecurity workforce, the emerging cybersecurity workforce, educational institutions, and the human resources sector which still struggles with recruitment and retention of new cybersecurity talent. It is for this reason that I decided to research and write this book.

The purpose was to provide a single point of reference that would provide a variety of readers with an understanding of the current field of cybersecurity, the most probable future of the field based on current trends and an illustrative guide to understanding the relationships and interdependencies of the various components that make up the field.

These components include the various technologies that make up cybersecurity, emerging technologies, current cybersecurity workforce, emerging cybersecurity workforce, educational institutions, and of course the organisations that require the security in the first place. Additionally, the criminal element and the driving xxvii forces of cybercrime are included in these components since they are the impetus for the entire movement.

This book incorporates several different approaches in its scaffolding that I felt worked well to bring everything together for the reader. The overall approach was to first perform and implement a literature review of over 100 articles, books, websites, and interviews from industry, government, and educational leaders in the field. Next was to include a series of expert opinions and scenario-based thought experiments in each chapter to help the reader position themselves in one of the scenario roles and hear from experts in the field. I then include probabilistic descriptions of the future of cybersecurity based on the topics discussed in the chapter coupled with the current and forecasted trends.

And finally, I included a library of resources for the reader, regardless of their roles, to quickly access during their cybersecurity journeys for whatever challenges they may encounter and at any level. In summary, this book is not intended to make the reader a cybersecurity expert but is intended to provide the reader with a broad understanding of how the various components of the cybersecurity field work together, explain current trends that are occurring and provide insights as to what the probabilistic future of cybersecurity and the workforce will be so the readers can get better prepared for the future, regardless of what their specific role in cybersecurity is now, or will be in the future.

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