Wanted: 1,000 IT Security Professionals

Singapore, 30 Nov 2011.

This is an excerpt of an article in The Straits Times today. I think it might be useful for Indonesian IT jobseekers.

Singapore needs internet security professionals to combat cyber threats as more firms adopt cloud computing and use mobile devices daily. e-Cop Group, a security services firm who operates the Government's Cyber Watch Centre, which monitors public sector IT installations round-the-clock against threats such as hacking, virus attacks, and cyber terrorism, is finding it hard to employ IT security specialists. Mr Noel  Hon, chairman of e-Cop, said that his company is continuously looking for people, as the shortfall has led companies to compete for staff.

Mr Freddy Tan, vice chairman for Asia of International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium, estimated the shortfall of IT staff is about 1,000. Microsoft has a shortage of security consultants too, he said. The Infocomm Development Authority's (IDA) recorded 710 vacancies in this field.

Worldwide demand for IT security professionals is rising at about 13% a year and abour 12% in the Asia Pacific region, estimated research firm Frost & Sullivan. It reckoned that there were 2.6 million IT security professionals worldwide and some 340,000 will be needed next year. For Asia Pacific, there are 830,000 professionals in this field and an extra 100,000 will be needed by next year.

The demand for IT security professionals has been driven by two key developments: The increasing use of mobile devices to access data in the corporate world; and cloud computing. The government's new centragl G-Cloud, to be set up next year, wants its cloud-computing platform to be monitored by the Cyber Watch Centre. This has raised the pressure on e-Cop to solve its staff shortage.