Cybersecurity moves fast. New and bigger threats emerge all the time across an ever-expanding attack surface and there’s not enough people to fill vacant jobs.
Because of this, “not every organization is hyper-focused on the subject of diversity and inclusion,” MK Palmore, a director in Google Cloud’s Office of the Chief Information Security Officer, told The Register.
“We as an industry get hung up on looking for folks who have been there, done that, and want talent to jump in and hit the ground running,” he continued. “We need to slow down a bit and widen the optics on what represents new talent to bring into the field.”
This requires investing money and human resources into training folks who don’t come from a traditional infosec background, but Palmore said the payoff is worth it for a couple of reasons.
First, there’s the well-documented worker shortage of about three million people. The security skills gap isn’t going to close unless organizations hire people outside of the existing cybersecurity workforce. “We can’t just keep shipping people from one company to the next,” he said.
Plus, diverse people bring different perspectives and ideas about how to solve problems to the table. The infosec community — still mostly male (76 percent) and mostly white (72 percent) — needs diversity to produce better outcomes, Palmore said.
If we don’t understand the importance of diversity, we’re going to continue misfiring
“If your input continues to be a singular focus or monoculture, or typically comes from the usual circles, you can expect the same outcomes,” he added. “It’s imperative that the cybersecurity industry continues to grow and thrive, and if we don’t understand the importance of diversity, we’re going to continue misfiring instead of making sure that we can get ahead of adversaries.”
To this end, Google Cloud recently partnered with Cyversity, a non-profit that seeks to bring more women and underrepresented minorities into infosec jobs. Palmore also sits on the Cyversity board of directors. And together with the SANS Institute and Palo Alto Networks, t
