By Issabella Anderson-Pass, Senior Account Manager at Albany Beck
Since the pandemic, cyber attacks have been rising rapidly – especially in the geopolitical ten.
The shift to remote working means firms have rushed to increase their digital capabilities to keep pace with shifting sands. During this time, cyber criminals have been leveraging security gaps to their advantage, extracting millions from organisations around the world. So much so, that AAG estimates that data breaches cost businesses an average of $4.35 million in 2022 alone.
Keeping threats at bay
Unfortunately, it’s a trend that isn’t going away. With greater use of digitalisation, data and information are more readily accessible, increasing the likelihood of cyber threats.
Household names such as the NHS, Santander and Ticketmaster have all fallen victim to security breaches. And it seems that the UK will continue to be a target; according to the National Cyber Security Index, the UK’s cyber security is ranked 16th in the world, lagging behind countries including Latvia, Cyprus and Lithuania.
With so much at stake, the UK is now increasing its focus on protecting data and increasing data privacy, which has prompted a flurry of new laws and regulations. While this is all well and good, many companies are struggling to increase their resilience and security to meet these new expectations – leading to a high demand for specialist cyber skills.
Current challenges
This demand is fast becoming a major issue in the UK and beyond. Combined with the ever-evolving threat landscape, there is now a serious skills shortage in the industry, which leaves organisations at high risk.
According to the (ISC)² Cybersecurity Workforce Study, there is a need for an additional 3.12 million cybersecurity professionals to effectively defend organisations globally. In the UK alone, the government found that 50% of all UK businesses had a basic cyber security skills gap in 2023, while 33% had an advanced cyber security skills gap. These figures are similar to both 2022 and 2021.
Factor in emerging technologies such as AI, IoT and Cloud computing, and it’s clear that ever-evolving vulnerabilities and risks create a need for cybersecurity professionals to constantly upskill. With the high stakes for institutions, security professionals are often required to have extensive knowledge and experience in the industry, making it hard to build succession pipelines, train junior talent and increase diversity.
Addressing Current Challenges:
Albany Beck is a professional services firm with specialist Cyber Security and Resilience capability across the European and US markets. Our Practice Lead and SMEs are able to provide tailored solutions to our clients most critical cyber related projects, and we specialize in the delivery and execution of high impact change.
Our flexible model allows businesses to onboard specialists at pace and adapt the capability within the team as the project needs evolve. We offer our clients the option to internalise resources to help with continuity and IP retention. This is especially useful for organisations that are looking to scale their permanent capability or transition their projects to a BAU level.
Given the deficit of cyber skills in the market, our Emerging Talent Programme (a specialist Recruit, Train and Deploy model) also helps organisations build diverse talent pipelines and lines and build succession, creating a resilient cyber security team. We can provide assistance in areas including Privilege Access Management (PAM) programmes, Identity Access Management (IAM) and data loss prevention across the UK, and we’re now supporting lower-cost locations too. As our model is available in both Romania and Poland as hubs for financial services, our specialists are on hand to help organisations in nearshore locations. All of this ensures we can work as a strategic partner for clients across their cyber portfolios.
Depending on our clients requirements and given our wide ranging experience, Albany Beck are able to take end-to-end ownership for projects and outcomes, or provide specialist capability to supplement existing teams.
Ready for the future
As reliance on digitalisation increases, there’s no doubt that the cyber security landscape will continue to present new challenges to institutions. The task now is to ensure employee learning is accelerated to drive scalable, innovative solutions that keep your business safe.
For forward-thinking organisations, the answer lies with a reputable partner who can provide leading cyber security talent that achieves immediate results.
If you’d like to learn more about how our specialists can help you protect your business against cyber security threats, reach out to our dedicated team or get in touch with me on LinkedIn for any more questions.
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