{"id":3034,"date":"2025-09-30T07:53:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T07:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/2025\/09\/30\/two-thirds-of-organizations-have-unfilled-cybersecurity-positions\/"},"modified":"2025-09-30T07:53:44","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T07:53:44","slug":"two-thirds-of-organizations-have-unfilled-cybersecurity-positions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/2025\/09\/30\/two-thirds-of-organizations-have-unfilled-cybersecurity-positions\/","title":{"rendered":"Two-Thirds of Organizations Have Unfilled Cybersecurity Positions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Organizations continue to experience significant cybersecurity skills shortages, with 65% of firms reporting unfilled cyber positions, a new ISACA survey has found.<\/p>\n

Over a third (38%) of cybersecurity professionals surveyed revealed it takes three to six months to hire for entry-level roles and 39% said the same for non-entry-level positions.<\/p>\n

Additionally, half of organizations admitted that they struggle to retain cyber talent.<\/p>\n

In total, 55% of respondents believe their security teams are understaffed. This represents a small drop from 2024, when 61% said their team is understaffed.<\/p>\n

Over half (53%) of respondents believe their cybersecurity budget is underfunded, which is down from 59% in 2024. However, fewer expect their budget to increase compared to last year\u2019s State of Cyber 2025\u00a0<\/em>research (41% vs. 47%).<\/p>\n

Just 56% think that their board prioritizes cybersecurity.<\/p>\n

Chris Dimitriadis, chief global strategy officer at ISACA, commented: \u201cWhile organizations are starting to acknowledge the problem and take steps to address long-standing issues in budgets and staffing, the pace of change is still far too slow.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe reality is that cybercriminals are moving faster than most organizations can respond. Now is the time to invest in investing in a more holistically trained cybersecurity workforce, an investment towards customer trust and in gaining competitive advantages, not just a reactive move following an incident.\u201d<\/p>\n

University Graduates Unprepared for Cyber Roles<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Just 27% of respondents believe university graduates are well prepared for cybersecurity roles.<\/p>\n

The top knowledge gaps in new graduates included incident response (43%), data security (39%), threat detection and response (39%) and identity and access management (39%).<\/p>\n

Security professionals emphasized the need for more soft skills in their teams ahead of formal qualifications, with 59% reporting a gap in this area. The top three soft skills required were critical thinking (57%), communication (56%) and problem solving (47%).<\/p>\n

Adaptability was considered the top qualification factor for security roles (61%), followed by hands-on experience (60%).<\/p>\n

Overall, 46% of those surveyed said that more than half of their cyber team transitioned into the field from other roles.<\/p>\n

Dimitriadis said the findings demonstrate the need to keep widening the pathways into the cybersecurity sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy valuing hands-on training, professional credentials and transferable skills, organizations can strengthen their teams and ease the pressure on overstretched professionals,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n

Threat Landscape Increasing Pressure on Cyber Pros <\/strong><\/h2>\n

The ISACA research also highlighted growing pressures on cybersecurity professionals. Around two-thirds (66%) said their role is more stressful than five years ago.<\/p>\n

The biggest contributing factor is the complex threat landscape, cited by 63% of respondents.<\/p>\n

Over a third (35%) reported increased attacks in 2025, while 43% believe an attack on their organization is likely or very likely in the next year.<\/p>\n

Additionally, 39% believe that cybercrime is underreported, even when reporting is required by law.<\/p>\n

Just 41% said they are confident in their team\u2019s incident-response capabilities.<\/p>\n

The top attack vector cited by respondents was social engineering (44%). This was followed by exploited vulnerabilities (37%) and malware (26%).<\/p>\n

ISACA\u2019s State of Cybersecurity 2025-2026<\/em> report surveyed more than 3800 cybersecurity professionals globally.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Organizations continue to experience significant cybersecurity skills shortages, with 65% of firms reporting unfilled cyber positions, a new ISACA survey has found. Over a third (38%) of cybersecurity professionals surveyed revealed it takes three to six months to hire for entry-level roles and 39% said the same for non-entry-level positions. Additionally, half of organizations admitted<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/3034-c5f8bec4-1804-4deb-8f9a-7c54bf1b04af.jpg",300,300,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/3034-c5f8bec4-1804-4deb-8f9a-7c54bf1b04af-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/3034-c5f8bec4-1804-4deb-8f9a-7c54bf1b04af.jpg",300,300,false],"medium_large":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/3034-c5f8bec4-1804-4deb-8f9a-7c54bf1b04af.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/3034-c5f8bec4-1804-4deb-8f9a-7c54bf1b04af.jpg",300,300,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/3034-c5f8bec4-1804-4deb-8f9a-7c54bf1b04af.jpg",300,300,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/3034-c5f8bec4-1804-4deb-8f9a-7c54bf1b04af.jpg",300,300,false],"morenews-featured":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/3034-c5f8bec4-1804-4deb-8f9a-7c54bf1b04af.jpg",300,300,false],"morenews-large":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/3034-c5f8bec4-1804-4deb-8f9a-7c54bf1b04af.jpg",300,300,false],"morenews-medium":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/3034-c5f8bec4-1804-4deb-8f9a-7c54bf1b04af.jpg",300,300,false],"crawlomatic_preview_image":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/3034-c5f8bec4-1804-4deb-8f9a-7c54bf1b04af-146x146.jpg",146,146,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"henry","author_link":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/author\/henry\/"},"category_info":"Uncategorized<\/a>","tag_info":"Uncategorized","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}