It’s time to address the growing cybersecurity skills gap

Cybersecurity warriors are in short supply these days. According to (ISC)2, 2.8 million professionals work in cybersecurity globally, but the industry would need another 4 million trained workers—500,000 in the U.S. alone—in order to properly defend organizations and close the skills gap.

And it’s only getting worse. A survey of 256 cybersecurity professionals reported that half have been taken off their typical security duties to assist with other tasks—including supporting employees affected by Covid-19–related work-from-home policies.

The result is what you would expect. The past seven months have been a boon for hackers, cybercriminals, and other malicious actors. The Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) reports a 63 percent increase in cyberattacks related to the pandemic.

It’s clear that more cybersecurity professionals are needed to protect users, applications, and data, but training younger workers is not going to happen overnight. You need reinforcements, and you need them now.

Menlo iSOC fills security gaps

Menlo iSOC provides prioritized and actionable threat intelligence that increases the efficiency of security operations center (SOC) personnel by reducing the number of alerts they have to process—and also helps to avoid alert fatigue. This benefit may reduce the difficulty many organizations have in finding, hiring, and retaining qualified threat hunters, incident response engineers, and security professionals, as well as aid those existing cybersecurity professionals that have been reallocated to other IT tasks.

Menlo iSOC complements the Menlo Security Platform by acting as an additional security layer. Its role is that of a sentinel, monitoring users’ Internet traffic and actions and alerting internal security teams of any threats to their organization.

Menlo iSOC eliminates security blind spots

You probably already know that the Menlo Security Global Cloud Proxy with an Isolation Core™ provides malware-free web browsing without impacting the native user experience. This allows users to access large swaths of the Internet that may seem risky to security tools but are actually relevant to users’ jobs. It’s how we enable a Zero Trust approach to cybersecurity.

But some policies may unintentionally create blind spots in your security posture—such as a policy that allows certain users to download an original document or access original content. In these instances, a targeted campaign could take advantage of these configurations. Menlo iSOC helps mitigate the risks associated with these types of policy gaps by monitoring Internet traffic as it flows through the Menlo platform to identify unintended policy gaps or misconfigurations and changes of risk classification from good to bad.

Let’s move forward

The cybersecurity industry is going through a difficult time. Growing skills gaps exist, and hiring, training, and recruitment efforts are still years away from fruition. At the same time, Covid-19 is pulling cybersecurity professionals away from their core responsibilities—leaving organizations vulnerable to malicious actors. Menlo iSOC closes these security gaps by assisting SOC teams with monitoring users’ Internet traffic and actions, reducing the number of alerts they have to process, and helping to avoid alert fatigue.

Learn more at menlosecurity.com/isolation-security-operations-center.