More than 1,400 IT security people across the US, the UK and APAC were surveyed on the impact that automation and artificial intelligence (AI) will have on the staffing of IT security functions. All respondents participate in attracting, hiring, promoting and retaining IT security personnel. Results clearly indicated a shortage of IT security staff across geographical regions (78pc of all respondents admitted their teams are under-staffed).
The study “Staffing the IT Security Function in the Age of Automation”, was by the US-based Ponemon Institute for DomainTools, a domain name and DNS-based cyber threat intelligence product company.
According to respondents, automation will provide a partial solution to the problem, relieving IT security of time-consuming and non-cost-effective tasks, such as malware analysis, which is either already automated (50pc), or is planned to become so in the next three years (56pc). Only 35pc of respondents, however, think that automation will reduce the headcount of their IT security function: 40pc even expect an increased need for hires with more advanced technical skills.
Dr Larry Ponemon, founder of the Ponemon Institute says: “Within just one year, the perspective around adoption of automated technologies has notably shifted among security professionals. Contrary to the popular belief that the rise of automation will threaten the job market, organisations now feel these technologies will help ease the current strain on resources, and offer the potential to promote job security for highly skilled staff, while strengthening cybersecurity defences.”
UK and US respondents were much more confident that automation will improve their IT security staff’s ability to do their job (59pc and 65pc of respondents, respectively) than APAC respondents (48pc), who were also more likely to distrust AI as a security tool (37pc of respondents, compared to 31pc in the UK and 24pc in the US). Skills shortages also seemed to be lower in the APAC region (67pc) than in the UK (70pc) and the US (78pc), perhaps partially explaining the different level of reliance and trust on automation and AI across regions.
Of those who said AI is trusted as a security tool in their organisations, the majority listed staff shortages as the main reason why their enterprise has adopted the solution (53pc).
Corin Imai, senior security advisor at DomainTools says: “The results of the survey reveal that, overall, security professionals are confident that automation will make their workload more manageable and will increase the accuracy of certain tasks, without jeopardising their job security. Although there are geographical differences in the level of confidence placed in AI and automation as security tools, the reasons that motivate their adoption – relieving overworked teams, preventing downtime and business disruptions, reducing threats created by operating in the global digital economy, etc. – seem to be consistent across regions, suggesting that goals and expectations are aligned for organisations across the globe.”
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