Check Point Software celebrates World Youth Skills Day by highlighting the cybersecurity workforce shortage

• At present, the global shortage of cybersecurity workers is estimated at 2.7 million people.
• Girls, young people with disabilities, young people from the poorest households, rural communities, indigenous peoples, and minority groups, as well as those living in unstable countries, continue to be excluded due to a combination of factors.

Today marks World Youth Skills Day, since its declaration by the UN in 2014, as a reminder of the importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work and entrepreneurship. Since then, World Youth Skills Day has provided a unique opportunity for dialogue between young people, technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions, enterprises, employers’ and workers’ organizations, policy makers and development partners.

That is why Check Point® Software Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: CHKP), a leading provider of cybersecurity solutions globally, wants to highlight the current cybersecurity workforce shortage (2.7 million workers globally according to a study by the Information System Security Certification Consortium (ISC)) and the need to give young people the tools to enter the industry, regardless of their situation.

The COVID -19 pandemic has led most of the world to a rapid digitalization for which the general infrastructures and institutions were not 100% prepared, or at least not prepared to do so quickly. Many people had to adapt to working from home with the dangers that this entails, even more so when there is a distinct lack of cyber security experts around the world to be able to keep cyber criminals at bay.

Collaboration between Check Point SecureAcademy and institutions around the world

To prepare students with the vital technology skills they need to secure the future, Check Point SecureAcademy was created to provide cybersecurity education worldwide through partnerships with third-party institutions through Check Point’s cybersecurity training umbrella called Check Point MIND, offering educators and students vital cybersecurity skills, learning resources and certifications through a “revenue-free” education programme.

Worldwide, a total of 45,000 students are using Check Point SecureAcademy’s free learning content today, including the Cyber Range and HackerPoint simulation courses, by more than 120 higher education institutions in 53 countries to increase students’ knowledge of cybersecurity. Another offering we have is the Check Point SmartAwareness solution, which is security awareness training for businesses that aims to prepare every employee with industry-leading cybersecurity awareness training so they are ready when a real attack happens.

“This is a very important day to assert the rights of students around the world to have opportunities to pursue a career in the field they are most interested in, even if they are in environments where there is a lack of opportunity,” said Sundar Balasubramanian, Managing Director, India & SAARC, Check Point Software Technologies. “For our part, we must be alarmed by the lack of personnel in a field that offers many quality job opportunities such as cybersecurity. We hope that in the coming years, with our efforts and those of the rest of the international community, this situation can be reversed.”

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About Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.
Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (www.checkpoint.com) is a leading provider of cyber security solutions to corporate enterprises and governments globally. Check Point Infinity´s portfolio of solutions protects enterprises and public organizations from 5th generation cyber-attacks with an industry leading catch rate of malware, ransomware, and other threats. Infinity comprises three core pillars delivering uncompromised security and generation V threat prevention across enterprise environments: Check Point Harmony, for remote users; Check Point CloudGuard, to automatically secure clouds; and Check Point Quantum, to protect network perimeters and datacenters, all controlled by the industry’s most comprehensive, intuitive unified security management. Check Point protects over 100,000 organizations of all sizes.