88% of Companies Were Hit by Cybersecurity Failures Last Year. The Reason Might Surprise You.

It was not a shortage of people that caused the problem. It was a shortage of skills.

The 2025 ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study — the largest annual survey of cybersecurity professionals globally, with over 16,000 respondents — found that 88% of organisations experienced at least one significant cybersecurity incident directly attributed to a skills gap on their team. Not a headcount problem. A skills problem. Sixty-nine per cent experienced more than one such incident in the same year.

For students and early-career professionals evaluating where to build their expertise understanding how to start a career in cyber security can provide the right direction. The cybersecurity field is not just growing — it is growing and still falling short. The demand is structural, and it is not going away.

Why Cybersecurity Is Structurally Different from Other Tech Careers

Most technology fields cycle. Hiring booms, cools, then stabilises. Cybersecurity follows different logic because the driver of demand — threats to digital systems — does not slow down when the economy does. It gets worse.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 29% job growth for information security analysts through 2034, one of the fastest projected growth rates of any occupation it tracks across any industry. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 ranked networks and cybersecurity as the second fastest-growing skill category globally, behind only AI and big data.

Those two fields are converging in real time. The ISC2 study found that AI is now the most in-demand skill within cybersecurity teams, cited by 41% of respondents — ahead of cloud security at 36%, risk assessment at 29%, and application security at 28%. The professionals entering the field today are not stepping into a static discipline. They are entering one that is actively reinventing itself around artificial intelligence.

What the Field Actually Looks Like From the Inside

One of the persistent misconceptions about cybersecurity is that it is a single career path. In reality, it is a broad umbrella spanning roles as different as they are specialised.

Core paths within the field:

•      Security Analyst — monitoring systems, identifying threats, and responding to incidents

•      Penetration Tester — ethically attacking systems to find vulnerabilities before bad actors do

•      Cloud Security Engineer — securing infrastructure across AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud

•      Compliance and Risk Analyst — ensuring organisations meet frameworks like NIST, ISO 27001, or GDPR

•      Security Architect — designing the overall security posture of an organisation's systems

Each path has distinct skill requirements, certification tracks, and salary ranges similar to other roles discussed in data science careers. What they share is strong demand and, increasingly, the option to work remotely — which has opened the field to talent regardless of geography.

The Practical Layer: Tools Professionals Actually Use

Understanding cybersecurity concepts is one thing. Working as a practitioner means getting comfortable with the tools used to test, secure, and monitor systems including tools covered in Kali Linux for ethical hacking — SIEM platforms for log analysis, vulnerability scanners, network monitoring software, and, for professionals working across borders or testing geo-specific configurations, network-level tools like a PIA USA VPN to simulate access from specific locations, verify regional security settings, or maintain encrypted connections when working remotely. Knowing how these tools function — and why they matter to the systems you are protecting — is part of what separates a practitioner from someone who has only studied theory.

Certifications That Open Doors

Unlike many tech fields, cybersecurity has a well-established certification ecosystem that employers use as a primary hiring filter. For those building entry points into the field, a few credentials consistently top job requirements:

•      CompTIA Security+ — widely recognised entry-level certification, vendor-neutral, respected across industries

•      Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) — focused on penetration testing and offensive security thinking

•      CISSP — the gold standard for senior roles, requiring demonstrated professional experience to sit

•      AWS Certified Security — Specialty — increasingly relevant as cloud infrastructure becomes the default

The ISC2 study found that only 5% of respondents reported no current skills gap in their teams, and 59% described their gaps as critical or significant — up from 44% in 2024. For those entering the field, this means the floor for in-demand skills is rising. Investing in the right certification is not just about knowledge; it is a credibility signal in a market where the bar for hiring is actively moving upward.

The India Opportunity

India's cybersecurity market is one of the fastest-growing in the world. According to the U.S. International Trade Administration, the market is projected to grow from approximately $5.6 billion in 2025 to $12.9 billion by 2030 — a compound annual growth rate of 18.3%. Demand is particularly strong in cloud security, threat intelligence, data protection, and incident response.

Domestic demand is rising alongside international hiring. Global companies are actively recruiting Indian security professionals for remote roles, with compensation structures that have historically been out of reach through local hiring markets. Professionals who build the right skills now — particularly in AI-adjacent threat detection, cloud security, and compliance frameworks — are positioned to access both local enterprise roles and international opportunities from the same credential base.

The Honest Caveat

Cybersecurity is not a field you can enter passively. The technical depth required is real, and the pace at which the threat landscape evolves means continuous learning is not optional — it is the job. The ISC2 study found that 48% of cybersecurity professionals already feel exhausted from trying to keep up with the latest threats and technologies, and 47% report feeling overwhelmed by workload.

But that same pressure is precisely why the field pays well and hires continuously. The 88% incident rate tied to skills gaps is not a warning against entering cybersecurity. It is the strongest possible argument for entering it well-prepared.

Where to Start

If you are evaluating whether cybersecurity is the right direction, the most useful first step is building a foundational understanding of how networks, systems, and threats interact. From there, the cybersecurity career roadmap on Board Infinity offers a structured path through the steps that matter: foundational skills, the right certifications, hands-on experience, and how to position yourself for roles that are actively hiring.

The skills gap is real, documented, and widening. For those willing to close it — on their own terms — the opportunity is significant, and it is not slowing down.