Events of 2016 pointed out a crying need for cybersecurity specialists, who make up so much of San Diego’s specialized workforce.
The year brought the perennial tales of data breaches. Some of the biggest were at Yahoo.
Then there were allegations that Russian operatives had hacked the Democratic National Committee, released private emails and possibly influenced the 2016 presidential election.
Internet of Things
Security concerns are not limited to computers. Pieces of critical infrastructure are connected to the internet. Increasingly, consumer products are getting tied up in what is called the Internet of Things.
Cybersecurity was a top concern in 2016 and promises to be again in 2017. As people fret, cybersecurity will probably be a magnet for investment.
“Money will flow to try to solve problems,” Alan Stewart of RA Capital Advisors LLC told the San Diego Business Journal in March, in a story about capital going into the cybersecurity sector. RA Capital is a registered broker-dealer in San Diego.
ESET North America and iboss Cybersecurity are two of the bigger San Diego companies providing consumer, business and government cybersecurity services.
Military Mission
More than 100 companies supported some 4,320 private sector cybersecurity jobs, according to a study from San Diego’s Cyber Center of Excellence group, released in June. That is a 19 percent increase in the two years since the last study.
The big player, however, is the U.S. Navy. Some 3,390 people in the Navy’s information technology command focus on cybersecurity. The organization is SPAWAR, short for Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command. The head count there grew 9.5 percent in the two years.
The study predicted 13 percent job growth in San Diego’s cybersecurity sector over the 12 month period ending in June 2017, compared with 2 percent job growth in the economy as a whole.
Average Salary $116,000
The average salary for the analysts, computer scientists and software developers in the cybersecurity field is $116,000, study authors concluded.
One of the things SPAWAR studied in 2016 was cyber defense — specifically how people who have to defend systems can do their jobs with the software tools they are given. SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific teamed up with National University for the joint work.
“If you’re making cyber tools really complicated you’re introducing two problems. The first is a steep learning curve for a new user. And the second is the sheer complexity of completing a task,” said center scientist Robert Gutzwiller in remarks distributed by the Navy. “What we know from decades of research is that under stress and under fatigue, operators can’t handle those things. They will make mistakes.”
In unrelated news, the federal government said it granted UC San Diego $1.4 million to map the internet and model attacks on it.
“The Internet has grown organically and there are many things yet to be discovered,” said program manager Ann Cox of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which announced the grant in October.
Doubtless some insights from this work will inform the private sector as it tries to stay ahead of the cybersecurity challenge.
CYBERSECURITY
No. of local jobs: 4,230 in the private sector, 3,390 in the military
Average salary: $116,000
Key economic fact: The cybersecurity sector creates $1.9 billion of economic impact when multiplier effects are considered. That equals 14 Comic-cons.
Top companies in sector (by local employment): Northrop Grumman Corp. (4,388), ViaSat Inc. (1,800), ESET North America (207), iboss Cybersecurity (145), Sentek Global Inc. (141)
Source: Cyber Center of Excellence, San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp., SDBJ Book of Lists 2017
