Page 250 - Cyber Defense eMagazine Annual RSA Edition for 2024
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how it processes and triages alerts, they still won’t get through the thousands they get per day. We cannot
            solve the security challenges we face today with more bodies. This is painfully obvious to anyone who
            has fought in the trenches of cybersecurity for any real length of time.



            So Now What?

            To pull this industry out from the catastrophic nose-dive it’s in right now means adapting and evolving.
            Let me explain.



            Hire smarter, then retain your talent

            Identify  recruiting  organizations  (in-house  or  outsourced)  that  understand  the  industry,  speak  the
            language, and can locate talent. To help them find the right staff for you, write your job descriptions and
            requirements with humility and realism. Interview intelligently, onboard swiftly, and make people feel like
            they’re part of a team and valued. Then require (not offer, require) continuous education and training so
            they stay sharp and up to date.

            Now  to  keep  these  people  from  leaving  as  soon  as  they’re  trained  up,  offer  them  competitive
            compensation, a flexible and adaptable work environment, and work-life balance. For bonus points, hire
            people who may lack experience but have potential – and give them the opportunity to become experts
            and earn great job roles that are rewarding and exciting. By the way, if you’re not looking at American
            military professionals coming back into civilian life and looking for work as cross-train opportunities, you’re
            missing a massive potential pool of great talent.



            Automate intelligently


            There’s no way to analyze petabytes of log files, packets, and alerts by simply having people look at
            them. You can’t scale threat detection and analysis with more people. If you don’t believe me, go look at
            some of the most efficient Security Operations Centers (SOCs) in the world and check out how many
            people  they  have.  They’re  not  massive,  but  they  do  automation  at  a  scale  you  can  only  dream  of.
            Automate as much of the mundane, boring, tedious human processes as you can – we have mountains
            of technology for that today. If you haven’t bought in, now is the time. Empower your existing staff to be
            able to do more by amplifying their efficiency and brain power with modern tools. With all the talk of AI
            out there, maybe it’s time to explore that avenue as well.



            Cross-train with IT


            Odds are there are people inside your IT organization right now who are trying to figure out how to join
            your security team. They haven’t done so because you’ve likely not given them a pathway (and, chances
            are, they’ll eventually go join a different company who will give them that pathway). CISOs should invest






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