Embracing diversity to address the cyber skills gap

Cyber security has a diversity problem. Just 25% of the global cyber security workforce is female,¹ and that shrinks to only 10% in APAC.² The lack of diversity is not just a gendered issue, with 56% of hiring managers reporting that hiring people from minority backgrounds is one of their biggest challenges.³

But diversity is not just a set of physical attributes. Diversity also comes from a range of perspectives, training and experience, all of which are critical to cyber security teams facing a spectrum of challenges in their roles.

Cybercrime is driven by a person in the first instance. And that person is an unknown force in their experience and intent. To crack their driver for crime and outsmart their acts, we must build a workforce that can draw on a broad set of experiences.

Equally, there are many highly functioning sectors in the world that skew to a narrow subset of people, so why should this low-diversity level be a challenge for cyber security? Broadly, cyber security is a problem-solving profession which needs a diverse set of perspectives to tackle the continually changing threat landscape. 

Cybercriminals treat their work like a profession by finding new ways to outsmart, evade and steal without detection or punishment. The impact can be varied and scaled, with 66% of organisations reporting multiple, isolated infections.⁴

The complexity of this crime requires an evolving approach to solving each new challenge, and when a frontline team is your first defence, it pays to build a strong team. Research has shown that teams perform 30% better when diversity is high due to increased trust and engagement.⁵  This also rings true at the leadership level, where diverse teams bring 19% higher revenues through innovation.⁶

Hacking is a crime with a diverse set of belligerents from across the globe. Bringing gender, cultural and language diversity onto your defence team evens the playing field and builds a team that is likely to persist.

Singtel’s work with Cross Polytechnic Girls In Tech group and Nanyang Girls’ High School addresses this need by training tomorrow's workforce and increasing women's participation in STEM careers. Through hackathons and workshops, we inspire interest and build skills in cyber security to enable the next generation of cyber professionals with diverse perspectives. 

The challenges of today can’t wait for the emerging professionals so, to build a strong defence, leaders must look to their current workforce. Even entering that workforce is a challenge, with restrictive requirements on qualifications for cyber jobs narrowing the potential talent pool and presenting leaders with a challenge at the beginning of the funnel.

One solution is to engage in cyber security training programmes across all levels of staff to embed a corporate culture of cyber alertness and expand the layer of defence. The training on offer at the Singtel Cyber Security Institute (CSI) is built on this strategy. It engages the technical and non-technical teams, and the senior leaders in detecting, alerting and suppressing cyber threats.

The training is based on the premise that a diverse skillset of professional backgrounds gives greater reach in cyber defence strategies. If you compare your current team of cyber professionals to the lawless world of hacking, it becomes clear that we’re fighting a diverse belligerent group with a narrow band of specialists - it just doesn’t make sense.

Research shows that people learn in different ways. Some like to listen to experts, some focus better on hands-on activities and some prefer group tasks. Cyber teams are no different and offering diverse learning sessions allows a diverse team to perform more effectively.

At the Singtel Cyber Security Institute, this range of learning is delivered through attack simulations, tabletop exercises and knowledge-building talks. The simulation environment gives trainees hands-on experience in cyber attack management using the formula: Detect, investigate and respond, contain and mitigate, and remediate. Tabletop exercises support pragmatic learners in developing the skills needed to make decisions and communicate with wider teams.

This training method fosters diversity and encourages a spectrum of perspectives on a task - something that will always be needed to address cyber security threats. 

We can’t precisely plan our cyber defence when the threat landscape is constantly evolving. We can, however, prepare the best team with the greatest knowledge and confidence to deal with the unknown.

Our current team doesn’t meet this need and the global cyber security talent gap of 3.4 million professionals is amplifying this urgency.⁷

Businesses in APAC have the power to turn this tide. Globally, we have the most people working in cyber security with 15.6% of the workforce residing in the region.⁸ Building a professionally and culturally diverse team allows our unique region to deal with complexity and build value at a significant scale.

Professional training gives cyber security teams the skills to build their defence and, extending the training to non-technical professionals creates a cyber-aware workforce as a whole. This strategy is profitable, with gender-diverse executive teams 25% more likely to have above-average profitability and culturally diverse teams outperforming less diverse companies by 36% in profitability.⁸

Choose professional cyber training to close the talent gap and build profitability: