IT consultancy firm CGI recently held a half-day seminar in Dundee entitled ‘Evolving Cyber Skills for a Growing Economy in Scotland’. It was hosted in collaboration with Dundee City Council, Abertay University and the Scottish Business Resilience Centre (SBRC).

More than 80 people gathered at The Steeple in the city’s Nethergate for a series of talks and workshops, which shone a light on how cyber resilient businesses and organisations have to be.

They also learned about the opportunities that exist to grow a workforce with sufficient cyber skills to help them thrive, what careers are out there – including ethical hacking and pen testing – and the economic growth opportunities of the creation of a ‘cyber quarter’ in Dundee.

Gregory Colgan, executive director of Corporate Services at Dundee City Council, who opened the event, said that the future is very bright for Dundee in cyber.

He said: “The skill and talent that is emerging from both Dundee and Abertay universities is first class and the ‘cyber quarter’ which is part of the Tay Cities Deal will allow us to build and develop this further.”

The day ended with a Q&A involving a panel of experts – CGI’s Head of Cyber Services, Richard Holmes, Mandy Haeburn-Little, Chief Executive of SBRC, Chris Martin, Chief Executive of app developer Waracle, Mark Lamb, Technical Director of M3 Networks, David Hamilton, Vice Chair of the Scottish Police Federation, James Baird, Head of Response and Engagement team at the Scottish Government Resilience Team and Eamonn Keane, Head of Cyber Security and Innovation at SBRC.

Here are six of the main points raised during their discussion:

1. Cyber isn’t necessarily a good word

The word ‘cyber’ could actually put people off the industry – particularly women.

Chris Martin said he had googled ‘cyber’ – it was invented in the 1940s and became popular in the 1980s but says it is really not helpful in the present day. He prefers the term ‘digital security’.

He was backed by David Hamilton, who also preferred ‘digital’ to ‘cyber’, saying: “It’s a really unhelpful word for me. It seems to be conceived as really mystical and difficult and hard. The challenges face more of a barrier when you call it cyber.”

He also highlighted the’macho’ nature of cyber language, especially terms like “war games scenario”, “cyber attacks” and “cyberbullying” – “Perhaps a change of language will make it more accessible for the public,” Hamilton said.

2. Scotland needs to up its game

Mandy Haeburn-Little said cyber can provide a real opportunity for Scotland. However, she said while “things are happening they are not sufficiently coalescing enough”.

She cited Cyber UK, the UK Government’s flagship cyber security event, coming to Scotland for the first time at the SEC in Glasgow as “so important”, attracting a “phenomenal international audience”.

Scotland has “created a marketplace in Scotland that everybody else buys but we don’t benefit from the marketplace. So we need to find the jobs here to create the jobs here where people just want to be part of that. Let’s nurture that and develop that”.

3. Dundee can provide ‘wealth’ of cyber learning and jobs

Dundee should market itself as a hub of cyber security excellence and build a formidable cyber security workforce to boot.

Chris Martin backed that vision but warned it has to resolve Dundee’s ongoing ‘brain drain’ issues where people trained in the city might “go off elsewhere” to further their career. He said cities like Dundee face a “real chicken and egg situation” where there needs to be the talent to invest but also the jobs to keep them. It’s difficult to gain both at the same time and keep people.

Mandy Haeburn-Little said Dundee now had an opportunity to resolve this thanks to the Tay Cities Deal, while Richard Holmes said there was an opportunity to get people back to the city thanks to a growing number of quality and range of jobs in the cyber security sector.

4. Resilience needs to run right through a business

Richard Holmes said companies must take a holistic approach to cyber resilience. They need to educate everyone “from board members and senior executives to those on the shop floor, they need to go on a journey. It’s a big job to take these people on that journey and it is evolving, but it is vital they do so”.

James Baird pointed to a recent report by the SBRC which focused principally on SMEs and why they “fail”. He said this year that the report was being taken forward into action to try to great good practice and achieve a standard for SMEs to build resilience in companies.

Mark Lamb said it also comes down to a lack of awareness among SMEs. He said: “We see with businesses that we work with – that if they ignore it, it’s because they don’t think it will happen to them until it does. We see customers not wanting to spend money on security but the moment it happens money isn’t a problem.”

Chris Martin reckoned it is vital for a company’s cyber evolution to appoint their first security professional. He said: “It changes the mentality of the whole company – and the sooner firms hire one the better.”

5. Education is vital

Richard Holmes described how keeping everyone’s skills up to date was like the rings of an onion. He said: “I have 200 cyber experts, we have 5,000 broader IT services people and it’s about educating them. Everyone is on a journey.

“My SMEs are on a journey, the broader IT industry is on a journey, the users of these IT services broader people in business need an understanding of cyber – board members, senior executives, business risk owners – they all need different aspects and levels of cyber.

“There is a big job for us to do collectively for us to take these people on that journey. And it is always evolving. Challenging through a life learning mindset for people, and them understanding the role they have to play.”

David Hamilton said: “Everybody needs cyber awareness, not just about companies. There is no adult education – in one workshop nobody had had any adult education on cyber security in their life away from work. That’s a big part of the problem.”

6. Diversity, diversity, diversity

It was pointed out to the panel that, of the 80 people in the room, less than 20% were women.

Mandy Haeburn-Little said diversity, and getting girls into cyber, was a key part of the City Deal. But she added that so was involving the veterans community. She said: “It’s about a big community campus idea – and we also need to support teachers and careers teachers much more.”

Mark Lamb said engagement at secondary school is too late, instead, it has to come at primary school, while Chris Martin believes software is the “home of people who are misfits”, in a way like him. He said: “There are lots of people like me in software who are talented and they are ‘wonky’ in other ways.” He said it’s important for companies to say “we see you are talented” and accommodate ‘wonky’ aspects, not seek to change them.