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A shortage of staff and skills are negatively affecting cyber security defences, new research suggests.

Published on: 9 Jul 2018

A shortage of staff and skills are negatively affecting cyber security defences, new research suggests.

Almost two in three enterprise representatives (65 per cent) who took part in a study by the Ponemon Institute and Juniper Networks did not have adequate security staff to deal with cyber attacks.

More than half of respondents reported being unsure of where to implement automation when it comes to security, despite 70 per cent of participants reporting a view that automation is important to securing their business.

The report highlighted a shortfall of experienced security staff compared to the amount of cyber attacks they face.

Only 35 per cent of the enterprise representatives surveyed could say that adequate staff were on hand within their companies to deal with cyber threats.

“The digital skills gap is a real issue which is manifesting itself in multiple ways in the business, from an inability to deal with cyber attacks to organisations struggling to implement automation,” said a spokesperson from IT service and asset management software solutions provider Ivanti.

“We need to be encouraging students in schools to embrace STEM subjects in greater numbers - less than one in ten students in the UK leave secondary school with an A-level in maths or physics.”