The exponential increase of cyber-crime, such as ransomwares attacks, has led to a rise in demand for skilled IT professionals.
“We are seeing an increased level of opportunity with job openings, and it is putting further pressure on businesses because they don’t have the same staff,” David Boyle, VP of sales in Americas at Commvault, said during its virtual Commvault Connection 2021 event yesterday. “They are looking for hires to come on board and help out and many of those are IT staff.”
A recent (ISC)2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study shows that more professionals are joining the field. It revealed a decrease in the global workforce shortage, shrinking from 4.07 million reported in the previous year to 3.12 million.
However, despite the narrowing gap, ransomware attacks are increasing as more businesses shift to hybrid working due to the pandemic. There was a surge in ransomware cases targeting supply chains during 2021, including the attack on SolarWinds from December 2020, as well as the attacks on Codecov in April and, most recently, Kaseya in July.
According to Boyle, no sector or industry is immune to this form of attack. “This is not just impacting governments and agencies; it is impacting businesses and firms. We are seeing this threat in financial services, healthcare, retail, oil, food, technology, education - nobody is immune,” he said.
A report by IT security organisation Sophos found that 44% of organisations in the retail and education sectors were hit by ransomware compared to 37% across all industry sectors in 2020.
“We all know ransomware locks out data, potentially wiping out data, and this is where Commvault is looking forward to helping out in that regard,” Boyle added. “Providing data management, security, immutable copies, and putting best practices into play independent from how folks manage data and back it up is critical to how folks recover and prepare for the event of a ransomware attack.”
