If one thing has become more clear within the past year, it’s that companies and their technology teams–big and small, no matter the industry–need to be on top of their game when it comes to security. And while security is most likely a big priority for your organization, these undeniable numbers from 2015 just might push security to the very top of your list (or at least they should):

• 9 mega-breaches, 2016 Internet Security Threat Report
  
• 38% more security incidents detected than in the previous year, The Global State of Information Security® Survey 2016
  
• $158 for each lost or stolen record, 2016 Cost of Data Breach Study
  
• 2,260 data breaches, Verizon'€™s 2016 Data Breach Investigations Report
  
• $4 million in total costs due to data breaches, 2016 Cost of Data Breach Study 
  
• 429 million exposed identities, 2016 Internet Security Threat Report
  

Ready to move security education and training to the top of your team’s to-do list now? Us too.

Today, we’re introducing Pluralsight’s newest category of training dedicated to information security and cyber security. But before we dive into our new offerings, a little more on why you should invest in some serious security training.

With the exponential growth of data and connected devices, the risks of insecure environments, apps and hardware have never been more impactful to individuals and companies than today. So while many of these skills are not new, the importance of them is magnified in today's technology climate. Additionally, there is a huge skills gap and lack of qualified candidates for jobs—ISC2 is estimating 1.5 million unfilled security jobs by 2020.

The additional need for security professionals is great. Security is not just something you sprinkle into your product lifecycles at the end or add to an annual analysis of your systems; security is an integral and ongoing process to all things technology now. Is your organization prepared?

We see the threats and vulnerabilities affecting organizations today, and we knew that a high-level, one-size-fits-all approach to security wouldn’t give different teams and industries what they really need. So, we created a new training category that meets those needs—something your dev team, IT department and dev ops people can rally behind.

Today, a successful technology team needs real-world skills, practical job experience and often times, industry-leading certifications. And they’re going to need these things to be covered in depth, which is why we’ve taken a deep dive into the world of information and cyber security to include topics such as: penetration testing, digital forensics, secure by design, security auditing, ethical hacking and more—all authored by security experts like Troy Hunt, Dale Meredith, Jason Helmick, Dr. Jared DeMott and others.

Many of our courses address security in the context of a given application or configuration (i.e. how can you create remote access on XYZ system and make it more secure) and will continue to do so. But with a dedicated category of training, we’re now able to focus on content specifically for the security professional and how they can do their jobs better and more efficiently. We’ll also hone in on the security topics that span beyond a specific system, application, language or framework.

We want your teams to feel confident enough to assess threats, mitigate vulnerabilities and respond to security incidents and attacks. Your organization should be able to protect valuable proprietary and sensitive data, keep critical systems running, maintain security compliance and adhere to regulations.

Today it's no longer good enough to get a system, app, network, server or hardware just up and running. There is a required focus and understanding on the security attack vectors for everyone in the technology product lifecycle. Understanding the risks and attack vectors of what you are working on are vital to you and your team’s success, even if their primary role isn't security.

Security and data breaches are a huge concern of every manager and could be the difference between success or complete disaster. Making sure your team and processes are properly focused on security is fundamental today. You can get your team started with courses like Web Security and the OWASP Top 10 Big Picture for developers, Introduction to Penetration Testing Using Metasploit for the security professional, or Understanding Ethical Hacking for anyone looking to learn more.

As content in this area grows, your team will be able to dig deeper into penetration testing, understand how to respond to incidents both internally and externally, and become more security aware, rendering your applications and environments safer. Additionally, more security certifications, such as the CISA, CISM and ISO/IEC 27002, will be covered.

With our dedicated focus on information and cyber security, we’re better able to provide in-depth training that concentrates on security holistically, from start to finish. This means improved data and systems security and an increased efficiency of technology teams. Building security into the processes, systems and apps from the start will give your organization and team the skills they need to identify security risks and define methods to mitigate those risks.

Explore our new security training and content category here and learn how your organization can amp up its defense.