Firms terrified of being subject to hacking attempts have been tripping over themselves to increase the number of cyber security contractors they have on staff.
If we can learn anything from the massive cyber attack that Sony Pictures Entertainment suffered recently, it’s this: the need for cyber security has never been greater. That firm was brought to its knees by a hacking collective all too easily, which highlights just how important it is to have cyber security staff working for your company that actually know what in the world they’re actually doing.
Of course, there’s been some hefty demand for cyber security freelancers and contract workers for years – but throughout the course of 2014 it’s shot up precipitously. One research study found that in the UK alone job vacancies for cyber security interim personnel has gone up at a rate that has exceeded 100 per cent in growth. That’s, well frankly it’s unbelievable. It’s also fantastic, brilliant news for contractors with the skills that firms are looking for, as it means these workers can more or less write their own ticket when it comes to deciding which contract to accept.
Not only that but pay packets are getting fatter. Research says that day rates for contractors in the cyber security sector have gone up an astounding 16 per cent in the last 12 months. Not only that, but permanent employees are getting some love as well; their own salary has gone up by around 10 per cent as well. In other words, it’s shaping up to be quite a lucrative little sector for sole traders and traditional employees alike.
Of course this spells fantastic news for contractors, but not so much for firms throughout the UK and beyond. Having the right kinds of cyber security in place has become such an incredibly important issue at the moment, something that the Sony hack underscores quite simply. No system is completely safe from intrusion when it comes to hackers or cyber attackers sniffing about the back door, so if you don’t have ways of keeping these bastards out – and the staff on hand to deal with intrusions as they happen – you’re more or less asking for trouble. Nobody wants to end up like Sony Pictures, who lost their entire computer networks for more than a week and had terabytes of information stolen from its internal databases.
