Filling the Cyber Skills Gap - A Self-Inflicted Talent Shortage
We believe there is a wealth of untapped talent that is being overlooked – individuals with exceptional practical skills who may lack traditional qualifications.
Stobaugh Group’s commitment is to empower these individuals to contribute to their community's safety by applying their natural talents to protecting our critical infrastructure through penetration testing, vulnerability and security research.
These are the same people you may see online in places like XDADevelopers, GSM-Fourms, or Github posting amazing solutions to problems that otherwise are not being solved or addressed. A great deal of these people are deemed "Hobbyists", but not by choice, they either don't know this type of work/industry exists, or they have been firewalled in the interview process due to lack of "technical requirements", likely never even seen by the actual person needing the help at all due to application filtering or a growing disconnect between HR and their understanding of positional requirements.
Our first move to change the industry stance on the above is to drop all college and high school requirements. We have also adopted a time-tested and proven concept for training others on rather technical or niche skills - Using an Apprenticeship program(s).
Teaching Tomorrow
Teaching the cyber security professionals of tomorrow doesn't only start in college, it can start when kids are young. Some of the top talent at Stobaugh Group started messing with computers and hacking phones when they were in Jr. High or younger. Stobaugh Group would like to reach these kids and show them that there is a lucrative career in cybersecurity, provided they stay on the good side. What do I mean by good side? After being into this kind of stuff for so long, one begins to see a dark side, or bad side, to hacking/cyber (Creating viruses or engaging in ransomware attacks on companies). We should take whatever steps possible to reach these kids at younger ages to encourage them to hack for the right reasons.