By Jay Bavisi, Founder and Group President, EC-Council
One of the greatest challenges confronting cybersecurity today lies in aligning workforce capacity with the capabilities required to address a rapidly evolving threat environment. As artificial intelligence (AI) accelerates the speed, complexity, and unpredictability of attacks, the skills mismatch between emerging risks and current expertise has become one of the defining issues for global security readiness.
AI-powered threats have moved from hypothetical scenarios to real-world complexities that are reshaping how organizations must think about defense. The modern threat landscape is no longer static. It is dynamic, fluid, and constantly learning, introducing new vulnerabilities at a pace that challenges even well-prepared teams. While skilled professionals continue to form the backbone of global defense, the emergence of AI-driven threats demands that both workforce and technical capability match this acceleration.
Global trends reflect this reality. According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, cybersecurity and network security remain among the fastest-growing global skill domains. Seventy percent of employers expect demand for these roles to rise sharply by the end of the decade. Meanwhile, nearly 40 percent of core job skills across industries are projected to shift by 2030, with 63 percent of organizations already reporting that talent shortages are slowing digital transformation. What was once framed as a workforce issue has evolved into a business risk that directly affects organizational resilience.
Insights from EC-Council’s Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) Threat Report mirror these global concerns. Nearly half of surveyed cybersecurity professionals report that their teams encounter challenges responding to incidents due to gaps in specialized expertise. In environments shaped by AI, where threats evolve unpredictably, static skills quickly lose relevance. What is urgently needed is a workforce equipped not only with foundational knowledge but with adaptive thinking, decision-making readiness, and the ability to apply advanced capabilities as threat conditions change.
Expanding the cybersecurity talent pool will require a broader approach to how we define expertise. While technical proficiency remains essential, skills such as ethical reasoning, systems thinking, and analytical problem-solving are increasingly valuable. These abilities exist across disciplines including law, psychology, public policy, and the arts. Opening pathways for individuals from non-traditional and diverse backgrounds brings fresh perspectives that strengthen the collective resilience of the workforce.
As the field continues to evolve, continuous learning has become essential to help professionals keep pace with new cyberthreats. The speed of change demands a workforce that can adapt quickly, apply critical thinking, and make informed decisions even as new risks unfold. Sustaining this learning mindset is now central to maintaining effective defense.
Organizations should encourage their IT and security teams to pursue certifications designed to build industry-ready skills – as they give both the individuals and their companies a competitive advantage. Popular certifications focused on ethical hacking and security AI use cases integrate emerging technologies into learning frameworks to prepare professionals for advanced challenges. Beyond certifications, continuous learning can be further supported through hacking competitions and capture-the-flag events, where professionals engage in ongoing simulations that expose them to new cyberattack methods and threats and strengthen applied readiness. Top certification and training organizations also offer online cybersecurity libraries, offering an extensive and continuously updated repository of micro-learning modules, courses, and labs that reflect emerging attack vectors and evolving threat scenarios, enabling professionals to maintain readiness.
Technology alone cannot secure the future. It is people who turn tools into outcomes, uncertainty into resilience, and complexity into decisive action. As cybersecurity becomes an increasingly complex minefield, building a skilled, adaptive workforce is no longer a goal. It is an urgent necessity. The time to act is now.
