June 17, 2020, Kathmandu
The global population is suffering from a rise in cybercrimes amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Cybersecurity Ventures, a research group, predicted a $6 trillion annual cost on global cybersecurity by 2021.
Nevertheless, hackers and scammers are doing all to exploit the panic and fear among people. Amid the rise in cyber threats, a report suggests a 30% growth in cybersecurity job searches in India.
The report collected data from employment or job portals suggesting the largest jump between February and May in cybersecurity and related job.
Moreover, postings for cybersecurity-related jobs have increased by 6 percent from February-May 2020, according to the report.
Similarly, the job postings in software development increased by 13% in the same time period.
Breaking down the age group for the job searches, the 25-29 age group ranked higher in terms of cybersecurity-related searches. Likewise, 20-24 years and 30-34 years of age group also rank on top.
It’s not surprising that companies want to strengthen their security following several setbacks in the lockdown. With more people working from home, these companies aim to create a more secure environment to guard against data breaches.
“As one of the emerging areas that businesses across industries are focusing on, cybersecurity-related roles see a lot of interest from millennials as well as entry-level talent” – Venkata Machavarapu, Head of Engineering, India, and Site Director at Indeed India.
According to the report, the average annual salary of a security specialist is INR 8,89,265. Similarly, IT security specialists can earn INR 8,07,170 and information security analysts can earn INR 4,59,304.
Importance of Secure Workplace Environment Past Pandemic
Most consumers may not trust companies that lack proper cybersecurity practices or have a data breach history.
No, we aren’t saying that. According to research by PCI Pal (Secure payments provider), 33% of consumers in the U.K. will avoid businesses that have poor data security practices. Meanwhile, only 11% admitted that security incidents would not impact their loyalty towards a business.
Similarly, 45% of consumers in Spain admitted to being concerned about how businesses will handle their personal data. Working remotely, 86% of Spanish consumers felt anxious about sharing their financial detail with companies working from home. 83% of consumers in Canada, 76% in France, and 80% in Australia showed the same concern.
These findings are based on responses from 3,501 respondents belonging to the U.K., Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Australia.
54% of Organizations Lack Proper Data Security Practices
Netwrix surveyed nearly 1,045 decision-makers in the security field and released a report “2020 Data Risk & Security”. This report suggests that 54% of organizations do not follow best security practices for reviewing access rights to data on a regular basis.
Furthermore, 91% of respondents believe that their sensitive data is stored safely. However, 1 in 4 organizations admitted that they had discovered such data outside of designated secure locations in the past year.
The CEO fo Netwrix, Steve Dickson, says that data breaches continue to increase even as cybersecurity budgets grow.
You May Also Like: Dedicated Cybersecurity Company From Nepal
Final Say
As cybersecurity is slowly gaining priority among several organizations around the world, data breaches still continue to become a major threat. At such times, it would be unwise to think that existing resources and workforce can keep the threats at bay.
Cybersecurity Ventures predicts that there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs globally by 2021, up from one million positions in 2014.
It is quite remarkable that cybersecurity jobs are rising in demand. With most Nepali companies being highly vulnerable to cyberattacks, this trend is extremely important in Nepal.
Hopefully, Millenials and Gen-Z come forward in Nepal as well and take interest in the cybersecurity domain.
Also, Read Cybersecurity at Priority in the Forthcoming Budget!