Supply shortage leads to higher salaries for cyber security pros

The covid-led digital transformation journey of companies has been further accentuated following the impending rollout of 5G services.

Average salaries of a cyber security analyst has gone up by 37-40% in India from August last year, said Siva Prasad N., chief business officer of staffing services firm Teamlease Digital. “An early-stage cyber security analyst having at least four years of experience is ₹7.5 lakh per annum right now. A senior analyst, with a decade’s experience, earns around ₹22 lakh, on an average,” he added.

Cyber security analysts offer advisory services to a company based on vulnerability reports from around the world. Unlike security researchers, who find flaws in programs and often fix them, analysts are considered to play an entry-level role.

The rise in the average salaries is part of an effort to plug the demand-supply gap, said experts. Data sourced from staffing platform Quess Corp showed the number of jobs rose by 113% in the past one year, especially catering to the banking, financial services and insurance sector, which saw a 4.8x rise in postings.

Despite the industry’s best efforts, security professionals are not willing to join Indian companies due to unfavourable work conditions and lower salaries. Skilled hackers typically build their own portfolios and earn a lot from freelance work.

For instance, Dhiraj Mishra, a security researcher took up a full-time security analyst’s role with an investment bank in the UAE two-years ago. Alongside, he pursues independent projects. “It helps me maintain a balance between the corporate role and my independent security profession,” he said.

The co-founder of a security firm, seeking anonymity, said the one-time payout for a bug bounty program can be significantly higher than the annual salary of a 9-to-5 job. Companies including Apple and Microsoft, pay millions to hackers for pointing out flaws in their software, and Indian ethical hackers are topping the charts for years.

VPN-services firm AtlasVPN, for instance, said Indian hackers netted over ₹35 crore between May 2019 and April 2020. Last year, security researcher Aman Pandey was one of the top researchers for the Vulnerability Reward Program of Google, which is the bug-bounty program run by the search giant.

The person said his firm had 90 vacant positions that have not been filled for the last four months, despite offering far higher salaries. Prasad said over 70,000 cyber-security jobs are vacant in India. The remaining professionals, according to industry executives, aren’t skilled enough.

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