Lack of security skills has become a drag on Australia’s digital transformation | CSO Australia

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"A lack of cybersecurity skills has forced more than half of Australian IT decision-makers to slow down their cloud rollouts, according to new research that has redoubled the urgency of strategies for building and deploying Australia’s cybersecurity capabilities" writes David Braue (CSO Online).
 

Photo: CSO Australia

As new initiatives woo cybersecurity talent, Australia’s cybersecurity workforce is falling behind global benchmarks – and cloud-first initiatives are suffering

A lack of cybersecurity skills has forced more than half of Australian IT decision-makers to slow down their cloud rollouts, according to new research that has redoubled the urgency of strategies for building and deploying Australia’s cybersecurity capabilities.

The rush to the cloud was slowing across the board, according to a new McAfee survey of 1400 IT decision-makers that found the proportion of businesses with cloud-first strategies had dropped from 82 percent a year ago, to 65 percent now.

One in four companies has experienced data theft from the public cloud, while 1 in 5 said they have experienced an advanced attack against their public cloud infrastructure.

With cloud security estimated to rise from 27 percent of IT-security budgets to 37 percent within the next 12 months, Cloud Security Business Unit senior vice president Rajiv Gupta told CSO Australia, the figures suggest that customers were learning the hard way that cloud security is harder than many companies had anticipated when they began ambitious digital-transformation efforts.

Poor visibility was flagged as a significant issue – and vendors, Gupta said, are to blame. 

“We see a plethora of vendors claiming to be best of breed, but they have laid the effort of integrating all of these products into a cohesive whole, on the feet of their customers.”

“But that is not their business; their business is producing sweaters, or cars, or managing financial instruments. We as an industry need to show that the different products we sell can exchange threat telemetry to function as a cohesive whole.”

Significantly, the problem seemed to be markedly worse in Australia, where 53 percent of respondents said problems with cloud security had forced them to slow down their cloud rollouts. This was well above the 30 percent figure in the UK, 37 percent in Canada, and 40 percent figure recorded globally – suggesting that the long-reported paucity of relevant security skills in Australia was taking its toll.

Just 10 percent of Australian companies said they do not have a cybersecurity skill shortage and are continuing with cloud adoption – well behind the 24 percent figure in the UK, 19 percent in the US and Japan, and 16 percent globally.
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Source: CSO Australia