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As we move deeper into 2022, almost every company is feeling the cyberskills gap to some degree. Now with the cyber workforce gap hitting 2.72 million, it’s unsurprising that IBM research recently found that 83% of organizations have had more than one data breach.
With the workforce gap showing no sign of closing, training is becoming critical for employees to teach cybersecurity professionals the skills they need to thrive amid today’s complex threat landscape.
Addressing the cyberskills gap
As the cyberskills gap continues to grow, more and more organizations are recognising the need to use training — rather than hiring — to fix the shortage.
“Studies continue to show that a cybersecurity staffing shortage is placing organizations at risk, and the skills shortage and its associated impacts have not improved over the past few years,” said Kevin Hanes, CEO of Cybrary, a cybersecurity skills training platform.
“Products and technology will not help solve this fundamental issue; rather, investing in people is key to narrowing the cybersecurity skills gap and helping to combat increasing burnout and human error,” Hanes said.
Hanes says that Cybrary is aiming to address these challenges by providing cybersecurity practitioners with the “right training at the right time” to equip them to respond to modern threats.
It does this by providing them with a platform they can use to access learning materials and prepare for professional certifications with scenario-based training and over 1,900 learning activities.
A look at the IT training market
Cybrary is competing against a range of cybersecurity training providers that offer online, in-person training and boot camps. The provider sits loosely within the global IT training market, which researchers valued at $68 billion in 2020, and estimate will reach a value of $97.6 billion by 2026.
One of Cybrary’s competitors is Pluralsight, which offers a mixture of courses, skill-assessments labs, and hands-on learning developed by industry experts on topics such as Microsoft Azure Deployment, AWS Operations and Ruby Language Fundamentals.
Pluralsight most recently announced raising $430.4 million in revenue in 2020.
Another competitor is Infosec, a cybersecurity training and security awareness training provider with over 2,000 resources, including over 1,400 cybersecurity courses and cyber ranges, and live boot camps with instructor-led training. According to Zoominfo, Infosec has raised $31 million in revenue.
However, Hanes argues that Cybrary differentiates itself from other solutions on the market by offering up-to-date learning material at a lower price point.
“Cybrary’s platform allows individuals and teams to skill up on their own time from anywhere in the world. And with the Cybrary Threat Intelligence Group (CTIG) and SMEs developing new content in real time, Cybrary users can be confident that we are providing them with high-quality training that covers the latest threats and vulnerabilities impacting the industry.”
Today, Cybrary announced it has raised $25 million as part of a series C funding round, bringing its total funding to $48 million following a $19 billion series B funding round in 2019.
The organization intends to use the funding to enhance its R&D across engineering, product and marketing teams, while growing the capabilities of the Cybrary Threat Intelligence Group.
More broadly, the funding highlights that investors are looking to security training as a potential solution to bridge the cyberskills gap.