Does a cyber security degree help in the real world? Industry professionals have mixed feelings on whether they’re useful

Higher education is still too disconnected from the day-to-day reality of cyber security, according to InfoSec professionals who would like to see more real-life examples of dealing with incidents.

In a survey of over 1,000 cyber security professionals worldwide, half said the availability of cyber security or information security courses in formal higher education was either poor, or very poor: that number jumped to 83% for professionals with two to five years’ experience.

Part of the problem is that the tech industry moves fast, but cyber security moves even faster. It’s driven not by the rhythm of product releases, but by the discovery of new hacking techniques and zero-day flaws.

“I think today we don’t have enough cybersecurity education for anyone to really excel in this industry. I think one of the challenges — and that’s not only for cyber security but in the technology sector as a whole — is that modern technology moves so fast, that something that is actual and current today gets old and turns into ‘legacy’ in one-two years,” said a CIO from a bank in Brazil quoted by the research.

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