Being the provider of a more than generous salary along with the status that comes with a security professional it is no secret why an average person would generally gravitate towards the cyber security industry. Money, while being a fine incentive to show up to work, is not a good enough incentive on its own to produce outstanding results. This is especially true in an industry that is constantly evolving every single day, you really need a passion for this kind of thing to get anything done efficiently. Anyone can get the degree but not a large amount of people can genuinely put in the work required to get the job done. Nearly 70% of employees polled in a new survey said they recently received cybersecurity training from their employers, yet 61% nevertheless failed when asked to take a basic quiz on the topic. This results are curtesy of a research study conducted by TalentLMS on behalf of Kenna Security that sought to understand the cybersecurity habits of around 1,200 workers, as well as their knowledge of best practices and ability to recognize security threats.
The most embarrassing part of this entire study is the fact that 60% of employees who failed the cybersecurity quiz reported that they feel SAFE from threats. Even more incredibly, 74% of respondents who answered every single individual question incorrectly report still feeling safe with their current security understanding. Does this mean that companies should stop training completely and only hire people who come fully qualified? Not at all, companies still need to lower entry level job qualifications to grow the industry and push training because it's the one of the best first-line defenses against an attack. Now these statistics are clearly a huge negative for the cyber security community and it shines poorly on all who work in it, however statistics like these are the ones that should drive the passionate handworkers even more to make up for their shortcomings, furthering innovation in the industry.