The Importance Of Cybersecurity Knowledge For Business Resilience

by Shay Solomon

The successful operation of any organization depends on business resilience—and now, as the number of cyberattacks increases, that resilience is being tested more than ever.

An important but often overlooked part of maintaining resilience in an organization is the continuous development of employee knowledge and skills, especially when it comes to cybersecurity. For CEOs, a culture of continuous learning through upskilling and reskilling can serve multiple critical purposes: bridging skills gaps, improving employee retention and reducing turnover. And cybersecurity training, in particular, can also help to ensure your organization’s security posture and operational continuity in times of disruptive change.

When companies invest in developing cybersecurity knowledge, they do more than secure their immediate prospects; they embrace the diversification of new possibilities. When employees are better informed, they can help their company adapt to the changing economy, unforeseen events, changes in technology and market shifts. Achieving this can happen in numerous ways, which I’ll cover in this piece.

Upskilling: Elevating Existing Talent

Upskilling involves enhancing employees’ current skill sets to meet evolving needs. Enhancing cybersecurity skills is essential to keep a competitive edge and adapt to changing technology.

The 2024 ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study emphasizes that the turbulent economy has led to significant staff and budget cuts. As this McKinsey study shows, nearly nine in 10 executives and managers report their organizations have existing skill gaps or expect to see them develop in the next five years. This reality highlights the urgent need for effective upskilling programs.

Yet these initiatives are more than just a means to secure a competitive edge—they can also be a growth engine of employee satisfaction and retention. A SHRM survey found that 86% of human resource managers said providing ongoing training and professional development increases employee satisfaction and retention. If you want to build a satisfied, well-retained cybersecurity workforce, take a proactive approach to improving your team’s skill set through courses and certifications, preparing you and them for a successful future together.

Reskilling: Transitioning Talent To New Roles

Reskilling means trained workers can take on new, important and needed roles in their organizations. But what if we applied this to not just a few workers but to a whole industry? While information technology (IT) has traditionally been the primary pathway into cybersecurity, an increasing number of new entrants are coming from diverse backgrounds and industries. The individuals who participated in the ISC2 study expressed that the various reskilling pathways were just as likely to lead to success in cybersecurity as traditional routes. This indicates that these bridge programs can effectively close the skills gap and lead to more hires in the field.

This trend highlights the need to expand recruitment strategies to encompass candidates from a wide range of backgrounds. Doing so will help to increase the number of qualified individuals who are applying for and filling cybersecurity positions. But even more crucially, this recruitment shift will help organizations better reflect the diversity of the user populations they serve—an increasingly essential quality in an era where cyber threat intelligence and countermeasure effectiveness are both intimately tied to the profile of the adversary and the “defended space.”

Reskilling existing employees is crucial as it creates a mutually beneficial situation for both the employees and the organizations. Employees get to advance their careers in new directions in the company they know and like, while their managers know they are getting a loyal employee they can trust and save a lengthy onboarding process.

Outsourcing: Leveraging Managed Security Services

Upskilling and reskilling are necessary, but making your business more resilient can also mean getting help from outside. Companies that provide managed security services can offer special skills and resources that are hard to find or develop in-house. This is why the Managed Security Service Providers (MSSP) market is projected to grow from about $23.19 billion in 2021 to $64.73 billion in 2026, making it one of the fastest-growing sectors in the overall cybersecurity industry. It is also another way to upskill and reskill in-house talents when choosing a co-managed service model.

People are changing the way they think about skills to get ready for an increasingly AI-driven world. Now, hiring managers are putting more weight on skills that will complement AI adoption. This means companies are using more outside help and depending on people who have the right skills to solve security problems that are getting more complicated and harder to manage. If you choose to hire a managed security services provider, make sure you get the most benefit by thinking about how they align with future challenges your organization may face.

Fostering A Culture Of Continuous Learning

If you’ve reached this section of the article, you can most likely understand why it’s so important to foster a culture that promotes continuous learning. This is no less significant for cybersecurity than any sort of formal training or service. When we allow—and even encourage—our employees to share a broader range of knowledge than what they were hired with, we are making them more competent and capable problem-solvers. This, in turn, creates a more resilient organization that can protect itself against new threats and continue to grow.

Companies that emphasize continuous learning are better positioned to innovate and meet the demands of a changing marketplace. According to a Deloitte study, having a strong learning culture makes a company 92% more likely to develop innovative products and processes. This commitment to learning contributes to a sense of ownership and accountability among employees, enabling them to contribute in an empowered manner to the organization’s objectives.

Conclusion

Investing in cybersecurity knowledge through upskilling and reskilling programs is not just philanthropy. For today’s CEOs, it is about bridging the skills gap, enhancing employee retention, reducing turnover and ensuring the continuity of business operations. To complement these endeavors, organizations can significantly boost their resilience by using strategic outsourcing of specialized functions like managed security services. No matter which strategy you select for your organization, promoting a culture of continuous learning should always be a vital part of the equation.