We hear new stories every day concerning security breaches, leaving the organization and its customers affected. Attackers are more skilled than the organization’s cyber security professionals. The gap of cyber security skilled work force is increasing every day. Although, many universities are working hard to cut down this gap by providing best cyber security education, however, failed to do so.





The growing number of attacks shows that the employees are not qualified enough to do this critical job. Moreover, the technology is changing rapidly, leaving security professional without advanced skills to do their role more effectively.

The world is facing shortage of cyber security skilled professionals. According to research by Juniper, this shortage will reach to two million professionals and cost will rise to $2 Trillion globally by 2019.

The report presented in RSA and ISACA’s conference “State Of Cybersecurity: Implications for 2015” states that, from more than half of global cyber security professionals surveyed, there are only less than 25% Cybersecurity qualified professionals doing their role effectively.

So, we have two upcoming challenges to address, one is the shortage of Cybersecurity professional and the other is enhanced and advanced skilled professionals to do this critical job. To contribute in this global challenge, CISCO has made a significant move to provide Cybersecurity scholarships.

According to CISCO scholarship program, CISCO planned to invest $2 million in this program to provide skilled cyber security professionals to the industry. Through this program; training, mentoring and certification regarding security operations will be provided. Moreover, CISCO will extensively work with the number of organizations to leverage this program as a platform for audience to jump start with proficiency and encourage their career interest.

In addition to the Scholarship launch, there is a launch of new Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) Cyber Ops certification, and the revised edition of existing Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE).

With the CCNA cyber ops certification, learners will be assessed on the skills needed to monitor IT security system, detecting cyber attack, gathering and analyzing evidence, and reporting responses to cyber incidents.

The revised version of CCIE will help to train audience with the advanced skills that are needed to address new technologies, such as: advanced malware detection, next generation IPS, virtualization. The new approach of assessment will also help to ensure that the audience demonstrated the knowledge and reached the advanced level of expertise.

This scholarship program will certainly help to defeat the global shortage of advanced cyber security professionals, and also bring enhancement to CISCO’s security certification portfolio.

This Scholarship awards are available from August 1, 2016 until the end of July 2017. Forms are available here.