Cyber-Security Not A Sector Of Much Appeal To Gen Z

Those 800,000 IT experts Europe will be missing by 2020 won’t be that easy to find, as the new study suggests that Millennials are not really crazy about a career in cyber-security.

These are the results of the annual study of millennials entitled Securing Our Future: Closing The Cyber Talent Gap. According to the study, young adults are not really interested in cybersecurity, but what’s even worse – the number of young women in the US interested in a cyber-career is five times smaller.

Mike Daly, Cyber chief technology officer (CTO) at Raytheon, told SCMagazine.com it is a cultural thing:

“It seems it has to do a bit with culture. When asked whether they had been made aware of cyber opportunities [by educators and other adults], 47 per cent of men said they had been made aware and only 33 per cent of women said they had.”

“Cyber more than any other industry is dependent on diversity to find solutions,” said Daly. “Without diversity you can’t possibly find solutions for all the different people and the ways they use and store data.”

If you thought it couldn’t possibly get worse – you were wrong. These young adults haven’t heard of a single cyber-attack in the last year. They haven’t heard of the TalkTalk event, the Anthem breach or even the American Airlines assault.

“One the things that jumped out was that 67 percent of young adults haven’t heard any cyber attacks in the last year,” said Daly.

The report was conducted by Zogby Analytics and has surveyed approximately 4,000 adults aged 18.26, in four global regions.