As the global digital industry continues to grow, there has been an increased demand for both businesses and Governments to prioritise cybersecurity. Cybercrime rates are quickly rising as according to Cybersecurity Ventures, damage costs are set to increase by 15% per year until 2025 where it’s estimated that global expenditure on cybercrime could reach US$10.5 trillion (£8.4 trillion). Hackers are becoming increasingly adept at breaking into digital systems, which is progressively becoming a challenge and impacting on organisations large and small. According to the UK Government’s Cyber security breaches survey 2024 – one in two businesses reported a cyber breach or attack in the last 12 months, in addition to 70% of medium businesses and 74% of large businesses experiencing a cyber breach or attack. Due to the growing number of cybercrimes, improving cyber resilience has become a major priority for many organisations, with ongoing concerns over data security and cybersecurity needing to be addressed.
Companies are now prioritising the hiring of talent with strong cybersecurity skills to ensure that their workforce have the skills necessary to deal with continuous and frequent cybersecurity threats. According to Cyber Ireland’s State of the Cyber Security Sector in Ireland 2022 report, Ireland’s cybersecurity workforce sector is forecast to add an additional 10,000 jobs by 2030, bringing in a gross added value of up to €2.5bn per year. Businesses from a wide range of sectors are bearing the brunt of cybercrimes, especially the manufacturing sector which is considered as being most at risk of cyberattacks according to IBM’s X-Force Threat Intelligent Index 2024 – with the industry experiencing a quarter of incidents within the top ten industries throughout 2023, followed by Finance and insurance (18.2%) and professional, business and consumer services (15.4%).
Talent availability is vital in providing protection from cyberattacks
Companies globally need to accelerate work to keep pace with the changing threat, particularly in relation to enhancing cyber resilience in the most critical sectors. According to the World Economic Forum, globally 71% of organisations have unfilled cybersecurity positions due to the global shortage of nearly four million cybersecurity professionals. Unfortunately, this is due to the challenges faced with growing the worldwide cybersecurity workforce which include the inability to find people with the right skills, the struggle to keep employees who have those skills, and shrinking hiring budgets due to the current economic climate. This is when countries need to step in and prioritise the recruitment and growth of cybersecurity talent.
A great example of a country doing this is Ireland, which is home to six of the top ten cybersecurity software companies. It also has a lively startup scheme with over sixty Irish cybersecurity startups. In order to facilitate attracting top cybersecurity talent across the sector, the country has simplified the immigration system, making it easier for businesses to employ overseas labour. To do this, Ireland has largely increased the number of employment permits processed for non-EEA nationals since 2022. Not only has this resulted in being able to attract overseas talent, but it has also managed to retain its local professionals, with net inward immigration of more than 100,000 graduates reported in 2020.
As such, Ireland is home to a thriving technology ecosystem with key global companies from Dell, Apple, Servicenow, Mastercard etc who are only a few of the companies that have turned to CyberSkills to boost their cybersecurity teams. CyberSkills, which runs from MTU, responds to industry skills and needs in a rapid and responsive way. For example, despite employing a substantial software development team, Mastercard reached out to the program for help in closing their gap in software security. A custom education pathway was designed to upskill their workforce to code in a secure way and perform security assurance testing.
This is just one of many examples showing the progress made in terms of the way that cybersecurity education is delivered. Ireland has seen and continues to see growth in cyberskills micro-credential programs that allow candidates to pursue highly focused upskilling and reskilling that respond to niche labour market needs. In 2020, the Irish Universities Association (IUA) was awarded €12.3 million through the country’s Department of Further and Higher Education to become the first European country to establish a national framework for nationally accredited micro-credentials. These courses help companies upskill staff with specific cybersecurity skills to standards that are globally recognised and help in looking to access new talent in over twenty-five critical areas such as network systems, security standards & risk, security architecture, malware, reverse engineering and more.
Cybersecurity initiatives can help strengthen the ecosystem
Countries need to be committed to developing their cybersecurity ecosystems by implementing initiatives to help build stronger cyber defences. There are plenty of examples of this in EU nations, with Ireland in particular already having initiatives in place to promote the ongoing development of its cybersecurity talent pool. For instance, the Government agency Skillnet offers industry-driven modules and bachelor’s and master’s degrees to promote upskilling. It also allocates funding to businesses so they can provide subsidised training to their teams.
Another organisation in Ireland that supports development in the cybersecurity sector is Cyber Ireland, which brings together Industry, Academia and Government to represent the needs of the Cyber Security Ecosystem in the country. Collaborations like this that bring together universities, research organisations, government agencies and industry stand the greatest chance of creating curricula that is able to address the distinct needs of specific industries and individual organisations and provide the ability to respond more quickly to a threat landscape that is rapidly evolving faster than the training. When more of these collaborations are rolled out across the EU and beyond, we could see the smallest changes with the greatest impacts.
It’s clear to see that globally, and in EU nations such as Ireland in particular, are well positioned to make significant advancements in cybersecurity software development and solutions coupled with the eagerness and fresh ideas of its new generation of talent who are ready to be recruited. It is becoming increasingly important to protect the data of both members of the public and employees at all levels, which is why we are seeing an increasing number of Governments and companies globally that are gradually investing more into their cybersecurity defences.
By Anne-Marie Tierney-Le Roux, Senior VP Enterprise Technology at IDA Ireland
