How FifthDomain is tackling Australia’s cyber workforce shortage

In the wake of repeated cyber attacks in the headlines, Australia’s attention is focused on how we respond to cyber threats.

Cybercrime is an incredibly lucrative industry and it’s estimated that if cybercrime were a country, it would be the third largest economy after the US and China, valued at approximately USD$6 trillion in 2021.

A staggering 90% of cyber attacks succeed because of human error. Technology alone isn’t enough as a defence strategy; people with cyber skills are key.

The Australian workforce gap is over 40%, which is around 17,000 cyber operators needed by 2026 according to the Australian Cyber Security Growth Network. The number of graduates of cyber, or cyber related courses, won’t fill that gap at just under 4,000 graduates in 2021. The Australian Financial Review cites the gap at around 30,000 additional cyber operators needed in the next 4 years.

The global shortage is 2.7 million workers in cyber according to ISC². How can we find and develop additional cyber operators so that they are ready to respond to real-life cyber incidents?

FifthDomain’s Assessor tool can identify cyber talent, skills, and even potential, through skills-based assessments. This browser-based tool captures candidate performance through cyber tasks and challenges and generates rich analytics to inform hiring decisions.

Our clients have had great success stories of hiring cyber security professionals for their organisation using Assessor. What sets FifthDomain’s Assessor platform apart is that it takes the bias out of hiring. Rather than relying on traditional recruitment screening tools such as CVs and interviews, Assessor provides candidates with a way to demonstrate their analytical and problem-solving skills, and potential, by completing bite-sized cyber challenges. This allows organisations recruiting for cyber security roles to identify candidates with skills and/or potential who may have been otherwise overlooked.

Assessor can also be used to not only assess candidates for cybersecurity roles but also assess an existing cyber security team, to identify strengths and any skill gaps. To continue to maintain a top-performing SOC team, it is essential to understand and mitigate the potential gaps. Education and training methods are out of step with the pace of the current threat landscape, which is why it is critical to establish clear training standards that will help ensure that all team members are trained and ready to defend against any potential threat activity within the SOC.

FifthDomain’s Labs platform with the help of custom-built cyber labs allows people to take cyber security training courses where they can launch virtual machines (VMs) from their own personal device and go through the steps that real cyber professionals do to triage and respond to cyber attacks in a safe, isolated environment. Our unique learning and training environments are available on-premises and remotely, meaning you choose what you want to teach and how, with pre-made content for new students, through to advanced operators.

By understanding your team’s potential gaps and implementing mitigation strategies, and by quality assuring cyber hires’ cyber skills and potential, you will be well on your way to building and maintaining a top performing SOC team, ensuring that your staff is prepared to respond to various types of cyberattacks. FifthDomain’s platform can be used to facilitate labs learning, competitions, and assessments by cyber educators and workplaces to quickly train and upskill their students or employees.

If you’d like to know more about how FifthDomain can help your security team, please get in contact today.