We have all heard the conventional wisdom: there aren’t enough trained analysts and investigators to fill the global demand. It’s called the Cybersecurity Skills Gap.
But here is something you probably haven’t heard: So what?
Hiring ever more staff will cause budgets to balloon out of control. Which begs the question, does an organization really need a large security team to be safe? Or is there another way? What will it take for cybersecurity to mature as other streamlined cost centers like IT, HR, and Legal have done?
The answer is simple but not easy: Innovation.
When there are over 500,000 open cybersecurity jobs in America alone, it becomes clear that we can’t solve the problem by people alone. Innovation is needed to improve productivity.
But innovation is a weird party guest. Before innovation arrives, everyone has an opinion…
“That’s not the right direction.”
It's cool but it won’t make a big enough difference.”
We’ve already tried that in the 1980s.
And when it does arrive, people can’t get enough of it…
“We’re way behind our peers, we need to refocus and get aligned with the industry.”
“I didn’t know we would be able to do all this.”
“We must integrate this with all the things!”
Why does this happen? When an innovation is just an idea, everybody has an opinion, but no way to measure whether or not it’s correct. All thoughts are subjective at that point. Once an innovation arrives and change can be measured, the calculus of value changes. It becomes more objective.
Cybersecurity is in desperate need of innovation. (ISC)2 estimates the global cybersecurity workforce is 2.8 million individuals, but that number needs to grow by an additional 4.07 million individuals. Some see that as a 60% shortfall in workers. Innovators see it differently.
What if a technology came along and increased the efficiency of cybersecurity workers by 10x? Then instead of a 60% shortage we would have 400% overage.
In the modern era, the only technology that can achieve that kind of productivity gain is software. And the innovation that is just arriving at the party is Artificial Intelligence.
The potential of AI in security is enormous. And while it may feel like an annoying buzzword sometimes, that doesn’t mean It won’t change our lives.
Take the car as an example. In 1900, only 1 in 10,000 people owned a car in the U.S. By 1910, 50 out of 10,000 people owned a car. By 1920, it grew by another 17 times.
It’s not crazy or ambitious to imagine that software and purpose-built AI can improve the efficiency of cybersecurity professionals by 10x in the next few years. In fact, at Secureworks, we’re counting on it.
Almost a year ago, we announced a change in our strategy and our commitment to cybersecurity as a whole – not just security services. In that time, we have released and continue to develop Red Cloak™ Threat Detection and Response, our cloud-native security analytics and investigations application.
Red Cloak TDR is a critical part of what we picture the SOC of the Future to be. We now use TDR to help deliver our Managed Detection and Response service because it can significantly reduce, and consolidate, the alerts from our customer environments. It gives us a productivity boost so we can spend more time in deep analysis understanding the impact and remediation of security events.
This is only the start. If you would like to learn more about modernizing security operations and Red Cloak™ Threat Detection and Response, listen to this on-demand webcast, Modernizing Sec-Ops With Software-Driven Detection and Investigation. We look at the current challenges facing security operations today, and how leveraging data science and machine learning can help improve security posture. You’ll also see a demonstration of Red Cloak Threat Detection and Response featuring an attack scenario based on an engagement from the Secureworks Incident Response team.
Or, if you’d rather a live experience, sign up for one of my Red Cloak TDR Tours offered each Thursday beginning July 23. Both options will give you a concrete idea of what software and AI can achieve in the real world.