Identifying the cybersecurity skills gap in your workforce has never been easier!
The cybersecurity skills gap is real.
According to a GOV.UK 2022 study, a high proportion of UK businesses lack staff with the technical skills, incident response skills and governance skills needed to manage their cybersecurity.
- Approximately 680,000 businesses (50%) have a basic skills gap. The most common of these skills gaps are in storing or transferring personal data, setting up configured firewalls, and detecting and removing malware.
- Approximately 449,000 businesses (33%) have more advanced skills gaps, most commonly in areas such as pen testing, forensic analysis and security architecture.
- A third (32%) have a skills gap when it comes to incident response (and do not outsource this)
What’s more…
- Almost half (47%) of cyber firms have faced problems with technical cybersecurity skills gaps, either among existing staff or job applicants. A total of 13% say that job applicants having these skills gaps has prevented them from achieving business goals to a great extent.
(Source: GOV.UK)
A cursory glance at a candidate’s CV is no longer enough to tick the cyber skills box. Now, it’s vital that organisations can identify skills gaps in their workforce and hire accordingly.
Easier said than done, right?
Thankfully, there’s an interactive training platform that’s changing the way businesses approach cyber awareness: Immersive Labs.
Immersive Labs represents the future of cyber skills training with on-demand, gamified, relevant, and risk-based interactive learning. The platform offers bite-sized cybersecurity challenges known as ‘labs’ that people can complete anytime, anywhere. As the name suggests, these ‘immersive labs’ are games that mimic real-life cybersecurity scenarios.
Thanks to browser-based simulations based on the latest threat intelligence, you can test the ability of job applicants against specific risks during the hiring process to acquire the right people, speed up the process, reduce inaccuracy, and remove bias.
The platform is purposely designed to address the cyber skills gap in three ways:
Equipping
Save talent acquisition costs by identifying existing staff with a talent for certain skills, and teaching them the necessary capabilities.
Exercising
Test the ability of job applicants against specific risks during the hiring process to identify the right people.
Evidencing
Understand and compare the specific strengths and weaknesses of each applicant with rich performance data for hires that directly map to that risk.
An example use case
Let’s say a hiring team has an influx of applications for a SOC Analyst position.
- To find out who may be best suited for an interview, the hiring team could set a collection of relevant labs for candidates to complete as a preliminary assessment. E.g. a simulated task focusing on incident response.
- Applicants could be invited to the platform to complete selected labs, along with a deadline for doing so.
- The hiring team can then track who has accepted, started and completed the assigned labs.
- The platform provides comparative live reporting on how candidates have performed. I.e. accuracy, time taken, leaderboard comparisons.
- The hiring team then has a list of candidates ranked solely on their ability to complete Immersive Labs content.
- Candidates who have performed well can be invited to attend an interview.
Does your organisation need to plug the cyber skills gap?
To learn more about Immersive Labs and what else it can offer, contact a member of our team or listen to our latest podcast episode: Passive Classroom-Based Training: Is it Fit for Purpose When it Comes to Cybersecurity?
