CMS cyber chief puts focus on ‘soft skills’ in the cybersecurity field>
Federal News Network – Justin Doubleday
Cybersecurity is regarded as a highly technical field that’s replete with expert certifications, renowned for those who can identify the next zero-day bug, and requires hard skills and practical know-how above all else.

But Robert Wood, the chief information security officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, wants to challenge some of those assumptions. The cybersecurity field now more than ever, he argues, needs people with soft skills like creativity, teamwork, and communications chops.

Employees who staff security operations centers, for instance, need to be able to effectively communicate log patterns and potential cyber incidents to IT teams and others within their organizations, Wood said. Penetration testers need to find effective ways to tell others about bugs and potential exploits they discover, instead of just “dumping” them on someone’s desk, he continued.

The cybersecurity profession is shaded by a “brashness, a kind of arrogance,” Wood said, that shames users who click on a phishing link or companies for shipping software with a zero-day exploit.

he Soft Side of Cyber framework will soon feature a “leadership” section geared toward CISOs with guidance on budgeting, strategy, hiring, contracting and other management issues.
Link: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/cybersecurity/2023/01/cms-cyber-chief-puts-focus-on-soft-skills-in-the-cybersecurity-field/