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According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics, there’s quite the gap in the market on the horizon. By 2029, the demand for Information Security Analysts is expected to grow by over 31% - much higher than the projected average 4% growth rate for other occupations, and exemplifying the rapid rate at which all of our businesses and processes as a society are migrating to online platforms. From banking to business networking, buying clothes to connecting with friends and family on the other side of the world, cybersecurity is a concern for any online operation.
The Cybersecurity Skills Gap
Unfortunately, a 31% increase in jobs requires a 31% increase in trained professionals to do them – and although IT remains a popular degree choice across the world, an increase of that magnitude seems unlikely to happen. It’s been noted already that there’s somewhat of a skills gap emerging in the field – that’s where the need exists and there’s roles to fill, but there aren’t the trained professionals to fill them. A skills gaps in any field often leads to high workloads, long hours and smaller worker bases in companies in the sector, so many recruiters in the sector are looking at ways to match the right minds with the right roles going forward.
As a career choice, cybersecurity doesn’t require a certain kind of mind – it’s a very diverse field, with lots of different careers and roles that focus on the different areas of keeping our information safe. But writing in TechCrunch magazine, columnist Cat Contillo highlights the many ways in which neurodiverse represent a pretty ideal fit for the skills that a lot of these roles entail, and how her own experience with autism makes her an ideal fit for a cybersecurity career.
Threat-hunting and thriving
Contillo explores how some traits common to people who have autism actually are incredibly well-suited to working in the fields of cybersecurity and interventions, and how some traits and ways of thinking can translate to the field with wonderful results. Many people who have autism are pattern thinkers, she writes, and can respond well to highly detail-oriented tasks and jobs. Somebody in a threat-hunting position might be able to find those subtle pattern differences between malicious and nonmalicious code that a neurotypical professional or indeed, an automated system might miss – and when it comes to keeping our data safe and secure, it’s important that we have the strongest bulwark possible against an ever-evolving world of cybersecurity threats.
According to Contillo, it’s not just a ‘skills to fit the bill’ scenario: it’s a case of embracing the benefits of different viewpoints and minds that think differently within the field. Neurodiverse minds might have the skills necessary to excel in threat hunting, threat analysis and cybersecure intelligence, but having a diverse team in which people who learn and think differently are represented means that you have different minds and perspectives to learn from. Create a positive workspace in which neurodiverse people are comfortable and can flourish has so many benefits, and companies all over the world are waking up to the possibilities.
It's a Neurodiverse world
Jo Cavan, a senior director of the UK’s national intelligence and security organisation GCHQ spoke recently about how ‘dyslexic thinking skills’ are ‘mission critical’ for GCHQ going forward, and that GCHQ was looking to foster company culture of neurodiverse talent. Similarly, at the multinational professional services network Ernst & Young, there’s a push to recruit neurodiverse talent in the form of their Neurodiverse Center of Excellence program, which has seen hubs all over the world open with a focus on hiring the best and brightest who fall outside neurotypicality. There’s a paradigm shift not only in cybersecurity, but in the business world at large, and we’re opening our eyes as a world to the amazing things that people who learn and think differently can do – it’s an exciting time, and one a long time in coming too.
You can read Cat Contillo’s full article at TechCrunch.
