From the course: Cybersecurity Outsourcing: Vendor Selection and Management

Why outsource cybersecurity?

From the course: Cybersecurity Outsourcing: Vendor Selection and Management

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Why outsource cybersecurity?

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- [Instructor] At first glance, outsourcing cybersecurity may seem like either a good idea or a bad idea. But no matter what you believe right now, outsourcing is a trust issue, right? Because of this, simply outsourcing just the annoying or expensive cybersecurity tasks and keeping the more interesting and fun stuff for your internal team isn't automatically the best approach. And no matter what rational business case you build, when you consider the strategic and cultural dimensions, outsourcing cybersecurity isn't right for everyone. For example, you may have a very unique culture that's hard for outsiders to understand, or you may have a lot of trade secrets that are just too valuable to share. So you have to consider all factors carefully when thinking about outsourcing cybersecurity. From the previous video, you know that in addition to cost reduction, another reason to outsource is to increase your effectiveness, which allows you to work from your strengths. In future videos, we'll dive into the specific risks of outsourcing cybersecurity so you can see if it's right for you. But here's the big wildcard. The lack of skilled cybersecurity people may force your hand towards outsourcing. By 2021, there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs. We're just not training people at a rate to keep the pace with the dramatic rise in cybercrime. Which, by the way, is predicted to cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021, which is up from $3 trillion annually in 2015. This means it may be difficult to hire the talented cybersecurity people you need, and if you can find them, they'll likely be expensive. Not only that, but odds are they will receive frequent, unsolicited job offers from other organizations willing to pay more than you are. Outsourcing offers one way to transfer the difficulty of staff acquisition and retention to an organization that specializes in it.

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