Episode 231: Solving the US’s Endemic Cybersecurity Worker Shortage

In this episode of the podcast (#231) Rodney Petersen, the director of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) joins host Paul Roberts to talk about the massive shortage of information security workers at the United States – estimated at more than 400,000 workers. Rodney talks about how NICE is working to promote information security skills and development. As always,  you can check our full conversation in our latest Security Ledger podcast at Blubrry. You can also listen to it on iTunes and Spotify. Or, check us out on Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Radio Public and more. Also: if you enjoy this podcast, consider signing up to receive it in your email. Just point your web browser to securityledger.com/subscribe to get notified whenever a new podcast is posted.  [MP3] Rodney is the director of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) The U.S. is struggling with a multitude of economic challenges these days. On top of a pandemic, which is crippling sectors like retail, entertainment and restaurants, companies are struggling with what’s been termed the “Great Resignation” – a nation-wide wave of quitting by workers worried about risks to their health or just fed up with substandard salaries, working conditions or both.  Episode 207: Sarah Tatsis of BlackBerry on finding and Keeping Women in Cyber But in the information security field, a “Great Resignation” would be considered a good problem to have. After all, in order to have workers resign, you first have to find and hire them, and that’s been a nearly constant challenge for organizations in need of information security talent in a country that has an estimated 465,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs.  What is the source of the U.S.’s chronic information security worker shortage and what can be done about it? To answer those questions, we invited Rodney Petersen into the studios to talk. Rodney is the director of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the U.S. Department of Commerce. In this conversation, we talk about the challenges of developing the cybersecurity workforce and why “teach...