“THE threat landscape “Zero-day attacks have evolved from simple malware to sophisticated attacks like ransomware. The rise of generative AI has enabled threat actors to execute evasive, unique and destructive zero-day attacks. With the expanding attack surface and evolving threats, mastering network security, incident response, cloud security, AI-based threat detection and regulatory compliance is critical,” said Kunal Ruvala, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks India.
Sowmya Vedarth, Partner, Deloitte India, said that as digitalisation and security threats increase, the nature of skills is rapidly changing from monitoring and testing to prevention and cyber defence roles. Digital trust The roles will be diverse and will combine functional and security responsibilities with technical skills. “The US and developed markets pay more for cybersecurity skills. However, with the rise of the Gulf countries, we are seeing demand from professionals for a faster migration of proactive defense and surveillance jobs to India,” she said.
RV Raghu, ISACA Ambassador and Director, Versatilist Consulting India, said digital trust will require a wide variety of roles, with a mix of functional and security roles tailored to technical skills. “Defensive roles such as security engineers and DevSec operations engineers and offensive roles such as risk and fraud analysts and incident responders will both be in demand,” he said. ISACA champions professionals involved in information security, assurance, risk management and governance.
Raghu said that certifications such as ISACA’s Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) and Certified Data Privacy Solutions Engineer (CDPSE) have led to a 10% increase in salaries and an 11% increase in market value for certified professionals, according to data from a recent Foote Partners survey released in Q2 2024. “In line with the high interest in AI, the Foote Partners IT Skills Demand and Pay Trends Report (ITSDPT) also highlighted that skills related to machine learning operations (MLOps) and convolutional neural networks (CNN) offered a compensation premium of up to 21% and a 10% increase in market value. Other skills related to data governance, data strategy, and risk analysis/assessment also performed well in the Foote Partner survey,” he added.
Atul Gupta, Partner and Head of Digital Trust and Cybersecurity at KPMG in India, pointed out that cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated and pervasive, while the supply of skilled cybersecurity talent is not keeping pace with demand, creating a significant skills gap. “The skill mix has changed rapidly over the last 18-24 months to keep pace with the threat.” Gupta said some of the areas where skills will be in demand include software engineering, which is integrated into core business processes rather than being seen as a wrapper that could facilitate compliance requirements. “This is a demanding skill that can help manage cyber risks by design (commonly known as shift left). Quantum computing will also have massive implications for cybersecurity, especially in the areas of encryption and cryptography. Skills in this area are in high demand, but this will become an area of demand, especially for industries that rely heavily on encryption and cryptography.”
