Top 8 Cybersecurity Skills IT Pros Need in 2018

One-fifth of CIOs expect to expand their IT teams in the first half of 2018, a new report found, and nearly one quarter of the respondents cite cybersecurity as their top priority.

The survey results in the the Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Forecast and Local Trends Report also found that 43% of respondents point to cybersecurity as the technical skill in highest demand at their organization.

"When we entered 2017, the talking points were about bridging the gap between security and IT. But with sophisticated technical breaches and ransomware attacks like WannaCry, there is a return back to incident response and more technical skills, which are hard to find," says Owanate Bestman, information security contract consultant at Barclay Simpson.

As for technical skills, "play to your strengths," Bestman advises. "If you are a generalist IT manager, a business-facing security manager role that buys security software for the organization or launches security training may work. Or, if you are a network architect, then potentially you could make the transition to a security network architect."

Here are the eight key cybersecurity skills that IT professionals - as well as IT security pros - should have in 2018, say career and job experts.