Eighty-seven percent of cybersecurity professionals expect AI to enhance their roles, offering efficiency and relief amid skills shortages, but they require upskilling to unlock its full potential.
Fortinet, the global cybersecurity leader driving the convergence of networking and security, released its 2025 Global Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report, shedding light on the new and persistent challenges organisations face due to the cybersecurity skills gap. The global survey’s key findings include:
• As organisations are turning increasingly to AI to strengthen their security postures and fill gaps, they also acknowledge that AI may be used against them as an engine of new or improved cyberattacks, especially given the lack of AI skillsets across teams.
• Lack of cybersecurity awareness and training remains the top cause of breaches.
• Boards lack cyber knowledge, despite it being a priority.
• Organisations want cybersecurity personnel with certifications.
“This year’s survey further underscores the urgent need to invest in cybersecurity talent,” said Carl Windsor, CISO at Fortinet. “Without closing the skills gap, organisations will continue to face rising breach rates and escalating costs. The findings highlight an inflection point for both public and private sectors: without bold action to build and retain cybersecurity expertise, the risks and costs will only continue to grow for our society.”
Report links cyberskills gap to escalating security and financial risks
As cyberthreats continue to escalate, organisations face the reality that attacks are not just a possibility but a certainty. At the same time, an estimated global shortfall of more than 4.7 million skilled professionals leads to critical security roles being unfilled at a time when they are needed most.
Key findings about the impact of the skills gap on organisations globally include:
• The volume of breaches organisations experience is increasing year over year. According to the 2025 Fortinet Global Skills Gap Report, 86% of organisations experienced at least one cyber breach in 2024, with nearly one-third (28%) reporting five or more. These figures mark a significant increase from 2021, when 80% of organisations reported breaches and only 19% faced five or more.
• The cybersecurity skills shortage is a key contributor to increased breaches. More than half (54%) of those surveyed indicated a lack of IT security skills and training as one of the leading causes of breaches in their organisations.
• Financial ramifications remain significant. More than half (52%) of surveyed organisations say cyber incidents cost them over US$1 million in 2024, consistent with the prior year and sharply up from 38% in 2021.
AI could ease strain on security teams, but lack of expertise is a growing risk
While AI offers critical relief amid ongoing skills shortages, organisations may not yet be fully prepared to harness its potential securely. This year’s survey found:
• Security technology with AI capabilities has been widely adopted. Ninety-seven percent of organisations surveyed are either already using or plan to implement AI-enabled cybersecurity solutions, with threat detection and prevention cited as the top areas of interest.
• AI can help alleviate the burden on short-staffed security teams. Eighty-seven percent of cybersecurity professionals expect AI to enhance their roles, offering efficiency and relief amid skills shortages.
• While AI can help security teams, teams lack AI skillsets to unlock the technology’s full potential. A majority of those surveyed (80%) say AI is helping their IT and security teams become more effective, but nearly half (48%) of IT decision-makers point to a lack of staff with sufficient AI expertise as the biggest challenge to successful implementation. Seventy-six percent of organisations that suffered nine or more cyberattacks in 2024 had AI tools in place, suggesting that adoption alone is not enough without the right expertise.
As board-level focus on cybersecurity grows, understanding of AI impact lags
When it comes to the board of directors’ understanding of cybersecurity’s role, the report revealed:
• Cybersecurity prioritisation at the board level is on the rise, with 76% of boards increasing their focus on the issue in 2024. Nearly all organisations now view cybersecurity as both a business (96%) and financial (95%) priority.
• Board members are less aware of the potential risks that AI use poses to their organisations. Fewer than half (49%) of all respondents indicated their boards fully understand the risks posed by AI, with awareness closely linked to whether their organisations are already deploying AI in their cybersecurity programmes.
Upskilling remains a focus in addressing the skills gap
As the cyberskills shortage persists, other key findings from the report include:
• Certifications continue to be highly valued by employers. Eighty-nine percent of IT decision-makers prefer to hire candidates who hold certifications. Most respondents said certifications validate cybersecurity knowledge (67%), demonstrate an ability to stay current in a fast-evolving field (61%) and indicate familiarity with key vendor tools (56%).
• Organisational support for funding certifications has declined. Only 73% of respondents now say they are willing to pay for employees to obtain certifications, down from 89% in 2023.
Closing the skills gap is critical to business resilience
The 2025 Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report makes clear that cybersecurity has become a board-level priority, driven by the rise of AI and the escalating risks to business operations. Closing the global skills gap remains essential. Organisations must rethink hiring practices, tap into underutilised talent pools and invest in training and upskilling to build and retain the expertise they need.
This requires a co-ordinated approach grounded in three key pillars: raising awareness and education, expanding access to targeted training and certification and embracing advanced security technologies.
To help organisations address these challenges, the award-winning Fortinet Training Institute, one of the industry’s broadest training and certification programmes, is dedicated to making cybersecurity certification and new career opportunities available to all populations, including a Security Awareness Training service for organisations to develop a cyber-aware workforce.
The Security Awareness and Training service offers AI-focused modules to enhance understanding of AI and the role it plays in cybersecurity, including an introduction to GenAI and curriculum around AI-powered threats, covering the various methods that cybercriminals use when harnessing AI to create and enhance cyberattacks.
Additionally, as part of Fortinet’s commitment to addressing this growing challenge, Fortinet is on track to train one million people in cybersecurity around the world by the end of 2026, since setting that pledge in 2021.
