Citing Fortinet’s 2022 Cybersecurity Skills Gap report, Secuna said talent shortage may contribute to the increase in data breaches and urges the government, as well as private entities, to strengthen its security posture.

Secuna, a community-powered cybersecurity testing platform in the Philippines, has been linking government institutions and small businesses including startups with cybersecurity professionals to improve or enhance their security strategies.

“Only a few companies are prioritizing cybersecurity because of regulations and certifications, and some of them already lack an in-house cybersecurity workforce to assist them in strengthening their security posture,” said AJ Dumanhug, co-founder and CEO, Secuna. “The skill shortage will more likely lead to oversights in processes, threats in the network, and lesser time to conduct proper risk assessment and management.”

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Dumanhug emphasized that organizations must look at cybersecurity as a responsibility, not just compliance. The corporate sector and government have to review their assets for any security gaps and take measures to eliminate known vulnerabilities before cybercriminals could exploit them.

“The first line of defense is awareness,” Dumanhug said. “With the rising threat of cybercrime activities, it is most important that we reconsider and create new strategies to recognize vulnerabilities and their warning signs to stay one step ahead of cybercriminals.”

Through Secuna’s assistance, cybersecurity professionals assist organizations in their security posture assessment, finding security flaws that real-world malicious hackers can exploit and leverage to gain access to their IT systems, while also continuously ensuring compliance with security and functional safety standards.

DICT certification

The cybersecurity firm also has recently announced the renewal of its certification from the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) as a Recognized Cybersecurity Assessment Provider for Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) in the country.

With the DICT certification, Secuna hopes to enable organizations to improve vulnerability management and remediation processes, better understand and reduce risk, manage the evolving attack surface, and leverage automation to enable manual pen testing to find business-critical vulnerabilities that tools alone cannot uncover.

“Secuna’s platform-driven, human-delivered approach to offensive cybersecurity provides an opportunity for organizations to think strategically about their proactive security efforts and tap into this pool of ethical hackers who can help solve the impact brought about by the scarcity of in-house cybersecurity talents,” Dumanhug said.