The cybersecurity workforce gap is expected to reach 1.8 million by 2022, a 20 percent increase since 2015 “due to essentially a lack of qualified personnel,” according to the Institute of Internal Auditors Qatar (IIA Qatar).
The statement was made during the webinar, titled “Cybersecurity Trends and Challenges for Internal Auditors”.
Professor Frank Yam, Chairman of Focus Strategic Group said, “Cybersecurity is the preservation of confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information and information systems through the cyber medium. Besides, other properties, such as authenticity, accountability, non-repudiation, and reliability, can also be involved.”
Focus Strategic Group is a consulting firm providing Business and Technology advisory services, focusing on IT auditing, risk management, and cyber-security.
Prof. Frank Yam Chairman Focus Strategic Group
“But it is not just about COVID-19, but in the new normal, everything is digitized. For organizations, the priority is on keeping everyone safe, as well as on customer experience management, business continuity, and new technology-related strategies. “For Internal auditors, it is about remote auditing, change in skills for digital transformation, and the economic downturn that increases fraud risks. Emerging technologies are “radically novel” and “relatively fast-growing technologies” persisting over time and potentially impact the socio-economic domains. The common risks with emerging technologies are overestimating AI capabilities, algorithmic bias, programmatic errors, cyber-attacks, legal risks, and liabilities.”
“Cybersecurity starts with understanding the real web. There is a World Wide Web with only 4 percent of Internet content, such as Google, Amazon, and Wikipedia, among others. Deep web Internet content is over 90 percent generally not accessible by search engines, such as academics, medical, government, and subscription information, among others. The dark web has only 6 percent Internet content with encrypted data of illegal sites and stolen data,” noted Prof. Yam, who displayed market prices from the dark web for information related to credit card, bank account, medical, Facebook, and spam, among others.
He further stated that strategic audit planning and usage of the NIST (National institute of standards and technology) cybersecurity framework as a benchmark guideline is needed.
“The ‘KEY’ for success is building teams that can thrive in the future that can’t be predicted. KEY is Keep Empowering Yourself,” commented Mr. Sundaresan Rajeswar, board member and chief adviser of the IIA Qatar chapter, who coordinated the event.
