Are you having a tough time hiring qualified cybersecurity experts for your business? If so, you are most certainly not alone.

According to a recent report from Intel Security and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), there is a now a massive cybersecurity workforce shortage which spans across eight different countries including the U.S., France, Australia, Germany, Israel, Japan, Mexico and the U.K.

Eighty-two percent of participants in the report admitted to a shortage of cybersecurity skills in their organizations. And one in four respondents claimed that their businesses have suffered from cyber theft due to a lack of qualified workers.

Intrusion detection, attack mitigation and secure software development were named as the top three technical skills that are most in demand.

Why are businesses having trouble finding qualified cybersecurity professionals with the aforementioned skills? It comes down to a lack of education, experience and technical chops among cybersecurity workers. Many professionals are entering the cybersecurity workforce without the necessary skills to combat cybercrime at a high level. And while businesses are increasingly investing in cybersecurity technologies and training, experts believe that it will be some time before the talent gap closes.

This is a big problem. The shortage of skilled cybersecurity workers comes at an especially sensitive time, as the need to protect private information has never been greater. Just last week, for instance, the White House announced that we are in the midst of a cybercrime “revolution” as malware is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and dangerous. Global hacking groups—many of which are sponsored by our foreign enemies—are now using advanced threats like ransomware to attack businesses and rake in large profits; enterprise ransomware, for instance, is now generating about $34 million annually. 

Businesses today simply cannot afford to wait for the cybersecurity workforce to get up to speed with the necessary skills for thwarting malicious hackers.  This is a problem that needs to be addressed now.

For this reason, many businesses are now outsourcing their critical cybersecurity functions to managed service providers (MSPs) like Apex Technology Services, which is able to provide immediate access to skilled security experts and cutting-edge network monitoring technologies. Over 60 percent of respondents in the aforementioned survey now outsource at least one aspect of their cybersecurity workloads.

Outsourcing security operations to an MSP will ensure that your business has the resources it needs to not only identify threat campaigns but also to fortify the network with the latest security updates.

So if your business is having trouble finding in-house cybersecurity experts, or if you want the added support of an MSP to bolster your in-house defenses, contact Apex Technology Services today. It’s a cost-effective, and guaranteed, way to protect your organization.

A new breed of hacktrepeneurs has awoken and they have little to fear and everything to gain by infecting as many companies as possible and extorting money from them. Apex Technology Services stands ready to protect your company regardless of whether it’s located in New York City; White Plains, New York; Connecticut; Australia; Europe; or anywhere else. Our full suite of cybersecurity and IT support services is at your disposal, enabling you to spend less time worrying about and more time growing your business.

In addition, our new Cybersecurity Compliance Certification for law firms will help keep your legal practice from becoming the next Panama Papers victim. This baseline cybersecurity audit for the legal industry should be considered seriously by all law firms.