There currently are not enough people getting into the cybersecurity field and the problem will continue to get worse as digitization grows, said Kerissa Varma, the group chief information security officer at Old Mutual Limited.
While there’s been a large focus on getting recent graduates into the cybersecurity market, Varma said she felt there was a gap in getting middle-career individuals into the field.
“People that have a ton of IP, a ton of experience, a ton of[emotional intelligence], that could easily port into cybersecurity, but is largely untapped at the moment,” Varma told Sam Curry, chief security officer at Cybereason, during an episode of the CISO Stories podcast.
To address this problem, Varma reached out to others in cybersecurity, including Curry, to start the group Hacking Into Cybersecurity to encourage more people from diverse backgrounds and careers into cybersecurity.
Listen to CISO Stories No. 29: Hacking into cybersecurity
As CISO of Old Mutual Limited, one of the largest financial services organizations on the African continent, Varma manages information security and business resilience with teams dispersed across 13 African markets.
