Exabeam Cyberversity: A Resource for Cybersecurity Professionals

We are excited to launch Exabeam Cyberversity to guide the next generation of cybersecurity professionals. This effort by the Exabeam Community team is designed to give back to aspiring cybersecurity professionals at all stages of their careers and increase industry-wide diversity through knowledge sharing and networking. Through a series of interactive educational experiences participants will learn from Exabeam staff and industry security experts about how to start or take the next step in their careers.

Security tools have evolved rapidly and with it the need for a skilled workforce who are at the forefront of defending their organizations from threats. Exabeam Cyberversity seeks to address some of these challenges.

Cyber staff shortage

In conjunction with the US Commerce Department, CyberSeek is a tool created by Burning Glass Technologies, CompTIA and the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (an offshoot of NIST) in support of cybersecurity workforce development. As of March 2021, it reports a shortfall of 13,700 information security analysts. And it says there are over 300,000 additional jobs that request cybersecurity-related skills, with it taking 21% longer on average to fill all such roles than other IT positions.

“You don’t have to be a graduate of MIT to work in cybersecurity,” said Tim Herbert, executive vice president for research at CompTIA. Even entry level positions such as penetration tester (pen tester), incident response analyst and network security engineer pay between $60,000 to $90,000 a year. But the problem remains finding those having the proper training and certification.

Current top attack type

Ransomware is the most prevalent form of attack today and afflicts both large and small organizations — including many local governments and school districts. For example, Colonial Pipeline paid Darkside, a hacker group thought to operate in Eastern Europe, a multi-million dollar ransom when they took control of America’s largest underground fuel pipeline this past May.

In view of other such attacks in the US and Europe, shortly thereafter the White House issued a memo in June in which the deputy national security adviser wrote that it’s essential for all enterprises to “view ransomware as a threat to their core business operations rather than a simple risk of data theft.”

Get onboard

With nearly half a million cybersecurity-related openings, Exabeam is providing interactive education through its newly-formed Cyberversity program. It’s open to students, recent graduates, and anyone else wanting to learn how a career in cybersecurity might benefit you and the organization(s) you serve.

All are welcome

Industry as a whole seeks diversity — hence companies naming chief diversity officers (CDOs). Open to everyone, Exabeam Cyberversity especially seeks to help women and minorities represent a larger percentage of those employed in cybersecurity. CEO and President Michael DeCesare says Exabeam wants, “to help address the talent shortage, bring diverse perspectives to our industry, and ensure global organizations are well-defended against the growing number of sophisticated adversaries.”

Career jumpstart

Each one-hour webinar will feature 4–5 cybersecurity panelists from organizations such as Canadian Tire, Castra, Chevron Federal Credit Union, Meissner Filtration, and others — as well as several Exabeam engineers and managers. They’ll be covering such topics as:

The inaugural Cyberversity session began in October, with each session being dedicated to answering questions regarding cybersecurity careers.

An excerpt from our second session onOctober 28th can be found here. 

We will be adding in sessions that include interview and resume preparation, as well as more networking Q&A sessions in the future. There is still time — register for our next session on November 8 — it’s free and we’d love to see you!

Cyberversity in 2022

• Exabeam Cyberversity: Interview Audit, Thursday, February, 3-4 p.m. PDT
• Exabeam Cyberversity: Networking Q&A, Thursday, March, 3-4 p.m. PDT