Dive Brief:
- Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Friday announced an initiative to provide free, cyber training for veterans living in Virginia and interested in working in the cybersecurity sector
- The goal of the program, called Cyber Vets Virginia, is to help veterans learn new skills and fill cybersecurity jobs in the commonwealth. McAuliffe said the state currently has 17,000 open cybersecurity jobs.
- Cyber Vets Virginia initiative is a collaboration between the commonwealth tech companies and organizations including Cisco, Amazon Web Services, ISC2 and the Institute for Veterans and Military Families’ Onward to Opportunity program.
Dive Insight:
States, the federal government and companies are all looking for cybersecurity talent as the labor market grows increasingly competitive. And companies that can’t find the tech labor they need face disadvantages.
A global cybersecurity workforce report released in July by Intel Security and the Center for Strategic and International Studies found 80% of surveyed IT professionals say they are dealing with a shortage of cybersecurity skills within their organization.
Even worse, that shortage of skills is costing companies money, with a quarter of respondents reporting that a lack of cybersecurity skills has "directly led to the loss of proprietary data through a cyberattack."
The report found an average of 15% of cybersecurity positions within companies will go unfilled by 2020.
