{"id":260507,"date":"2026-05-31T15:28:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T19:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/31\/cybersecurity-skills-gap-is-now-the-top-ciso-concern-sans-2026-report\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T16:45:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T20:45:11","slug":"cybersecurity-skills-gap-is-now-the-top-ciso-concern-sans-2026-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/31\/cybersecurity-skills-gap-is-now-the-top-ciso-concern-sans-2026-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Cybersecurity Skills Gap Is Now the Top CISO Concern, SANS 2026 Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cybersecurity-insiders.com\/cybersecurity-skills-gap-ciso-concern-sans-2026-report\/\">Cybersecurity Skills Gap Is Now the Top CISO Concern, SANS 2026 Report<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cybersecurity-insiders.com\/cybersecurity-skills-gap-ciso-concern-sans-2026-report\/\">https:\/\/www.cybersecurity-insiders.com\/cybersecurity-skills-gap-ciso-concern-sans-2026-report\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-05-31 15:28:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.cybersecurity-insiders.com\">www.cybersecurity-insiders.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sixty percent of chief information security officers now cite the cybersecurity skills gap as their primary workforce concern, overtaking headcount shortfalls for the first time, according to the SANS\/GIAC 2026 Cybersecurity Workforce Research Report, which surveyed 947 security leaders across industries globally.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>60% of CISOs named \u201cnot having the right staff\u201d as their top challenge; only 40% chose \u201cnot enough staff\u201d<\/li>\n<li>AI is the primary driver: rapid enterprise AI deployment has exposed gaps in what existing teams know how to secure<\/li>\n<li>The report identifies nine strategic recommendations, led by developing formal AI governance programs and baseline AI security training<\/li>\n<li>Hiring alone will not close the gap: the market for highly skilled AI-security practitioners is too small and too expensive<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>SANS 2026 Report: CISOs Rank the Cybersecurity Skills Gap Above Headcount for the First Time<\/h2>\n<p>Rob T. Lee, SANS Institute\u2019s chief of research, sees a direct line from AI adoption to the skills shift. Corporations have deployed AI across every business function, creating a technology stack that security teams were not hired or trained to defend. The gap that emerged is not in org-chart slots, Lee said; it is in what the people filling those slots are equipped to do.<\/p>\n<p>The challenge compounds at the assessment layer. \u201cIt is hard to assess through a simple survey question,\u201d Lee acknowledged. Marling Engle, CEO of Cyberstar, an automated cyber talent management platform, put the problem plainly: companies are posting entry-level roles that require advanced competencies \u201cbecause they don\u2019t have a good match for what is in the field and what they actually need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Two structural fixes are available today, both grounded in standardized skills frameworks. The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) framework and its international equivalents provide shared vocabulary for what a given role actually requires. Engle urges CISOs to&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cybersecurity-insiders.com\/cybersecurity-skills-gap-ciso-concern-sans-2026-report\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cybersecurity Skills Gap Is Now the Top CISO Concern, SANS 2026 Report https:\/\/www.cybersecurity-insiders.com\/cybersecurity-skills-gap-ciso-concern-sans-2026-report\/ Publish Date:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":260508,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.cybersecurity-insiders.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/cybersecurity-workforce-retention-ians-2026.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[20,57],"class_list":["post-260507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cybersecurity","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260509,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260507\/revisions\/260509"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}