The government has just announced a new strategy for industry that aims to tackle weak productivity and bolster businesses to counter any new problems caused by Brexit. The strategy highlights the need for improving digital skills especially in cybersecurity. Paul Farrington, Manager- EMEA Solution Architects at Veracode commented below.
Paul Farrington, Manager- EMEA Solution Architects at Veracode:
“With over two-thirds of medium and large British firms having identified a cybersecurity breach or attack over the past 12 months, it is reassuring for the government to have established cybersecurity as a key component to the new Industrial Strategy. The new flagship Cyber Discovery Programme will certainly be a crucial element in providing the skills necessary to build Matt Hancock’s vision for the UK to be the safest place do business online.
“However, given the massive growth of the digital and data-driven economy, it is important that cybersecurity isn’t just seen as the job of cyber specialists. Our digital assets must be secure by design and we need to support the developers that are creating them in gaining the security knowledge and skills to build them securely. With the DevSecOps Global Skills Survey finding that just 24 percent of developers and development team managers were required to complete cybersecurity courses as part of their education, it is clear that formal education is currently falling short and there is too great a reliance on them “learning on the job”. The high profile breaches that took place earlier this year highlighted just how much carnage software vulnerabilities can cause, so it essential that we provide our developers with the best chance of building digital assets securely.”
