Webinar Series

Upskilling and Reskilling the Workforce for Cybersecurity Roles

November 14, 2018
National Cybersecurity Career Awareness Week

November 12-17, 2018

Access resources and register how you will participate at:

nist.gov/nice/nccaw

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Accomplish More. Spend Less. 

• What is the distinction?

• Can higher education bridge the gap? The State of the Cybersecurity Workforce and Higher Education Survey

Did “cyber” find you?

Upskilling vs. Reskilling

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Accomplish More. Spend Less. 

• Job security and demand in the field

• Desire to help and protect, to make a difference

• Interest in the field

• Better pay and the opportunity to make more money

• Desire to learn and continue education

Top 5 Reasons

Certificate or Degree?

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Accomplish More. Spend Less. 

Partnerships - Employers

Ready Workforce

Findings indicate that employers have a ready and willing pool of potential cybersecurity employees within their existing 

workforce, if they’re willing to spend the time upskilling them and giving them the training they need. 

“Those most likely to consider pursuing a cyber 

education if it were funded by their employer were 

those between the ages of 35-44”

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Accomplish More. Spend Less. 

One important observation from my work with federal 

agencies over the past year is that the more we can 

work together to find avenues to meet with learning 

leaders and front-line employees to discuss potential 

opportunities for development, the more likely we are 

to see employees remain excited and engaged about 

their careers in federal service. This is all to say, higher 

education can be not only a great professional 

development tool, but also can aid in Federal 

employee retention efforts. 

~Tim Kavanagh, Champlain College Online

• Diversity and inclusivity

• Quality of and in learning process

• Career-focused professionals

WIN-WIN

Partnerships - Government

82% 

Student 

retention

3.6 

Average 

GPA

5
Q & A 

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Enterprise Cybersecurity

Fidelity Investments 

Senior Cybersecurity Consultant

Chad Johnson
Fidelity Investments NIST Framework In Review

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Enterprise Cybersecurity

Protect

Governance & 

Controls

Identify

Business 

Engagement & 

Resiliency 

Recover

Development & 

Operations

Mike Cheesman

Development & 

Operations

Enterprise 

Identity 

& Access Mgmt.

Detect Respond

Respond

Threat & Vulnerability 

Management 
NICE Framework Workforce Categories 

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OPERATE AND 

MANTAIN

OVERSIGHT 

AND 

DEVELOPMENT

COLLECT AND 

OPERATE

SECURELY 

PROVISION

ANALYZE

PROTECT AND 

DEFEND

INVESTIGATE
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ExperienceEducation
Q & A 

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Upskilling and Reskilling the 

Cybersecurity Workforce 

Douglas Meadows

N.A. Delivery Head | Cognizant Security

November 14, 2018

© 2018 Cognizant
Investment in our People – “The Reskill Package”

© 2018 Cognizant

Upskilling and reskilling is a constant, living and breathing effort within any organizations modern information security program. There are 

three key-pillars in which we run this effort today within the firm. 

Investments Into Training and 

Constant Learning Industry Recognized Certifications in Cyber

Security

Certifications by leading Security vendors like IBM,

Cisco, RSA

Periodic Internal Assessments

Job Rotation Across Teams and 

Functions 

ü IAM, DPP, GRC, ITM, IVM, Cloud

ü Cloud Security teams with skills across the 

breath of Cyber Security

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Skilling Process @ Cognizant Security

15 © 2018 Cognizant

Planning

• Yearly training budget

• Skilling plan based on 

Demand-Supply of Skills

• Role Development plan 

based on Full Stack 

Developer/Engineer path

• Each developer/engineer to 

carry Fundamental, 

Adjoining and NextGen

skills

Executing

• Dedicated Competency 

teams to upskill and reskill

• Dedicated Global Capability 

Dev lead to plan, execute 

and track skilling efforts

• Certifications to assess 

skilling 

• Quarterly review of skills 

master table to include 

upcoming/new demand 

from markets

Tracking

• Existing Skill Base

• Target vs Actual Skill 

base reporting

• Training calendar with 

links for employees

• Reskilled and Upskilled 

report

• Certifications

• ROI report
Upskilling/Reskilling Snapshot

16 © 2018 Cognizant

• IAM – Sailpoint, IBM SAM, CA IM, CA 

SiteMinder, CyberArk, Ping

• ITM – CA, Cisco, Symantec, Palo Alto, 

Qradar, Macfee, Bluecoat, Websense

• GRC – RSA Archer, MetricsStream

• Cloud – Azure, AWS, Oracle, Google

• IVM – Burp, Qualys, Nessus, HPE, 

Appscan, Checkmarx

• DPP – IBM Guardium, CTS Obscure

2018

• IOT Security

• Cloud Security

• IAM – Saviynt, JainRain, BioCatch, 

BehavioSec, Vormetric, Thales, 

Voltage, PKI

• ITM - Imperva, TrendMicro, Zscalar, 

Logrythm, Tipping Point IDS/IPS, 

Ayehu, Bit9 Carbon black

• GRC – COBIT, SANS, ISO

2019
Real World Information Security Program Examples

© 2018 Cognizant

General IT Focused Role Re-Skilled & Upskilled Specialized Cyber Role 

System or Endpoint Administrator:

Originally tasked with the management of a 

domain, user identities and/or antivirus 

controls.

Complexity

“General Medicine i.e. Internal Med or Hospitalist” “Sub Specialty - Specialized Medicine – i.e. Dermatology”

Web Application Developer

Helpdesk / Tech Support 

• Web Application Security : Very common to see talented / security interested web 

application developers shift to a web application security architect or governance role given 

their development background. Developers for the most part are easily groomed to 

understand tactics around application attacks. 

• Identity or Access Management – System admin’s or domain administrators are usually 

neck deep into admin functions that relate to security – good foundation to re-skill. Flipping 

this to a cyber centric role to manage identity structures, authentication (who you are) and 

authorization (what you can do) policies can be very straightforward and low barrier of entry 

into cybersecurity. 

• AV / Malicious Code Control Architect – General IT practitioners who managed 

endpoints or endpoint controls can easily come into security via the means of managing 

more hardcore security controls

• Security Configuration Hardening Architect– Great entry into security via 

documentation, and configuration standards for technology.

• L1/L2/L3 SOC Analyst: While automation and SOAR can have an impact on L1 tasks – L1 

or even L2 troubleshooting analysts have been seen to make a move into L2 SOC roles due 

to their analytical skillsets – those same skillsets exerted by good tech support type analysts 

in IT can be retrofitted into a SOC to focus on commodity malware and reconnaissance type 

incidents in a SOC. Within large financials and even Cognizant – fusion centers have made 

this more likely. 

Reskill

Reskill

Reskill

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Real World Information Security Program Examples

© 2018 Cognizant

Complexity General IT Focused Role Re-Skilled & Upskilled Specialized Cyber Role 

“General Medicine i.e. Internal Med or Hospitalist” “Sub Specialty - Specialized Medicine – i.e. Dermatology”

Penetration Tester / Forensic Investigator

• Threat Hunter: Threat hunting has become a very common role across many mature 

information security programs over the past 3 years given the focus on endpoint detection 

and response (EDR) and automation in the SOC landscape. Upskilling penetration testing 

consultants or inhouse pen testers to proactively “hunt” in an organization for threats is taking 

away the traditional detection mindset to a more prevention / early detection activity.

Data Analyst / Data Scientist 

Upskill

Upskill

• Security Operations and Metrics Analyst : Data scientists with some training on security 

tools, tactics, and procedures can be equipped to serve and add value in a SOC in terms of 

their ability to formulate deep analysis and reporting. 

• Furthermore, shifting to business risk – they can tremendously add value to the higher level 

program by deriving and massaging complex data sets from vulnerability management and 

IRM to provide metrics and security health to executive leadership and the board of directors. 

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Q & A 

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Thank You for Joining Us!

Upcoming Webinar: 

“Encouraging Cybersecurity Career Discovery via Career Assessment Tools”

When: Wednesday, December 19, 2018 at 2:00pm – 3:00pm EST

Register: https://nist-nice.adobeconnect.com/webinar-dec2018/event/registration.html

nist.gov/nice/webinars

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