Fortinet: Cybersecurity Vital to Close Growing Skills Gap

Cybersecurity in 2024 continues to be a crucial concern for businesses around the world.

The cost of data breaches and cyberattacks is high, as companies experience financial losses but also attract leadership criticism. In response, businesses are eager to tackle the challenge with a three-pronged approach, according to Fortinet’s 2024 Cybersecurity Skills Gap report, that combines training, awareness and technology. 

According to the report, nearly 90% of organisations experienced a breach within the last year alone. They can attribute this in part to a lack of cybersecurity skills, with 70% citing an increase in cyber risks as a result of burgeoning skills gaps.

An urgent need to confront workplace talent gaps

Data breaches can be catastrophic for businesses if they do not have the appropriate measures in place, both financially and reputationally. In fact, the global average cost of a data breach was US$4.45m in 2023, leaving companies to lose revenue as a result.

A recent notable example was the UnitedHealth hack, a cyberattack on unprecedented scale that hit UnitedHealth Group’s subsidiary Change Healthcare and extracted a multi-million-dollar ransom, in addition to leaking patient data online.

Likewise, several hospitals in London felt the sting of a ransomware attack in June 2024 that impacted essential services and led to the cancellation of planned operations.

As attacks continue to increase worldwide, concerns continue to rise about how businesses around the world will continue to be impacted by the growing cyber threat landscape. Currently, businesses are attributing these breaches to a lack of cybersecurity skills. Over the past year, Fortinet cites that 87% of organisational leaders have experienced a breach that they can partially attribute to a lack of cyber skills, which has increased from 84% in 2023.

Additionally, Fortinet suggests that more than 50% of respondents indicated that breaches cost their organisations more than US$1m in lost revenue, fines and other expenses in 2023 - a figure that has increased from 48% in the 2023 report and 38% from the previous year.

Investing in strong cybersecurity training measures

To mitigate these inevitable cyber threats, the report suggests that four million professionals will be required to fill the growing cybersecurity workforce gap. Now, company directors are viewing cybersecurity as more of a business imperative, with 72% of those surveyed by Fortinet saying their boards are now focusing more on security than before.

The report highlights that investing in training and certification processes for IT and security staff will go a long way to raise awareness of cybersecurity best practices. “This will be especially important as new threats develop and technologies, such as AI, make attacks more precise and sophisticated on a larger scale,” it says.

Crucially, finding candidates to help thwart ongoing threats is no easy task, with 70% of those surveyed by Fortinet stating it is currently difficult to find candidates with certifications that are technology-focused enough.

“To effectively mitigate risk and combat today’s complex threats, organisations must employ a strategic combination of leveraging the right security technology, upskilling existing security professionals through training and certifications, and fostering a cyber-aware workforce,” comments John Maddison, Chief Marketing Officer at Fortinet.

“As part of Fortinet’s dedication to closing the skills gap through this three-pronged approach, we pledged to train one million people in cyber by 2026. As we near the halfway mark of this five-year commitment, we are close to having trained half a million individuals to date.”

The company is committed to making significant strides towards educating the business community on cybersecurity threats. It recently announced a partnership with FC Barcelona as its official cybersecurity partner to bolster cybersecurity measures and improve on-site fan experience.

During such an era of digital transformation, engaging with technology-based strategies to mitigate disruption by threat actors is set to remain a key priority moving forward.

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