As organizations around the world contend with mounting cyber threats, one thing is clear: building security skills is everyone’s responsibility. And cybersecurity isn’t just for October—it’s a year-round concern. Sophisticated attacks are increasingly common and costly; combatting them requires a comprehensive strategy that invests not only in cutting-edge technology, but in the knowledge and abilities of your team.  

Your team’s security skill level can be the difference between significant financial and reputational losses and successfully defending against malicious actors. Unfortunately, there is a significant and growing security skills gap that can limit an organization’s ability to respond.

That’s why we published the paper Stay ahead of cyberthreats with security skill building from Microsoft Learn, to share how prioritizing security skill building in your organization can help you strengthen your defenses against cyber risks and remain resilient when threats arise.  Resiliency requires leaders to address a critical reality—that security isn’t just a technology issue, it’s a human issue.

At Microsoft, we’ve weathered prominent security threats, evolved with the changing security landscape, and confronted the challenges that come with maintaining security skills in a world where technology never stops changing. This lived experience has prompted our own security transformation and a renewed commitment to corporate accountability. And we’ve learned it’s critical to achieve the right balance of investments in security across people and technology.

So how do you ensure your team has sufficient levels of competency, especially when 76% of organizations believe that “security skills are the most difficult abilities to recruit for and retain” and 78% say they “lack the in-house skills needed to fully achieve their cybersecurity objectives?”

A functional approach to security skill-building: Strengthening your security skills program means providing people with the tools they need to succeed.

That’s not an easy question, but we found there are two important actions that stand out as critical to your security skilling plans:

Build a learning-first culture—leaders must position skills development as a condition of collective and individual success. At Microsoft, for example, we encourage leaders to create time and space for their teams to learn, develop role-based skilling plans, and emphasize the value of learning from each other.
Place security skill-building initiatives at the center of your cybersecurity strategy—security skill-building for both technical and non-technical employees should be championed from the top of the organization and include a clearly defined skilling path for designated teams.

Your skilling efforts will likely need to focus on building baseline skillsets as well as deeper bodies of knowledge across teams. Start by examining the structure of your organization to determine the skills each team needs to learn or expand. It’s also a good idea to keep in mind that teams need to work together to strengthen security measures across your organization.

Because security skills are not one size fits all, it’s helpful to designate accountabilities and requisite skills by team—including business groups, IT, and data specialists. To succeed, everyone in the organization must cultivate a security mindset. 

Key takeaways can help you stay the course. The security skills programs you put in place are only as strong as your organization’s ability and willingness to follow through with them—but there are some key takeaways that can help set the stage for success.

By setting the expectation that everyone in your organization is responsible for digital security, you will be well-positioned to adopt and implement security skill-building plans as a central component of your cybersecurity strategy.

Wondering how Microsoft Learn can help accelerate your security skill-building journey? Check out our Security hub—learn.microsoft.com/security  

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