Closing the Skills Gap Through Open Educational Resources

Warsaw, Poland - September 23, 2025

How open educational resources empower the next generation of cybersecurity professionals

The cybersecurity workforce shortage has reached crisis levels. Governments, enterprises, and NGOs struggle to fill critical roles, while attacks grow more sophisticated and frequent. Traditional training programs and certifications, while effective, are expensive and inaccessible to many. Open Educational Resources (OER) provide a powerful alternative, giving learners everywhere the chance to gain essential skills.

Not The Hidden Wiki (NTHW) addresses this gap by curating and distributing open learning materials for free. Content ranges from penetration testing guides to risk management frameworks, effectively lowering the barrier of entry for students, career changers, and professionals in underfunded regions. Access to knowledge should not depend on geography or financial resources.

CypSec strongly supports such OER-based training, integrating it into CypSec's enterprise and government security platforms. Through CypSec's nonprofit work and own security academy, teams can practice and apply skills directly in real-world environments. This “learn by doing” approach accelerates practical expertise.

The value of OER goes beyond cost savings. Open materials are constantly updated by communities, ensuring that learners are exposed to current attack techniques, compliance standards, and defense strategies. This agility is difficult to achieve in closed, commercial training systems where content updates often lag behind emerging threats.

"Closing the cybersecurity skills gap requires lowering barriers to entry. Open resources make this possible at scale," said Frederick Roth, Chief Information Security Officer at CypSec.

Through collaboration with NTHW, CypSec also helps validate and structure OER content for enterprise-grade use. Professionals and organizations benefit from training programs that align with security needs while remaining accessible to employees at all levels. This reduces reliance on expensive external certifications and cultivates continuous in-house skill development.

The broader societal benefit is capacity building. Democratizing education creates opportunities for talent in regions traditionally excluded from the cybersecurity workforce. This not only helps fill global demand but also strengthens local resilience, as communities can defend themselves with homegrown expertise.

Critics argue that open education lacks the rigor of formal certifications. However, when paired with hands-on labs, open platforms, and structured career pathways, OER becomes a practical gateway into the profession. It creates a pipeline of talent that may otherwise never enter the field.

Combining NTHW's nonprofit mission with CypSec's own nonprofit ambitions ensures that open education becomes a force multiplier. Learners gain accessible, current, and actionable skills. Organizations gain more capable workforces. And the global cybersecurity community moves closer to closing the skills gap that threatens digital resilience.

About Not The Hidden Wiki: Not The Hidden Wiki (NTHW) is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to making cybersecurity knowledge open, accessible, and ethical. Its platform offers curated educational resources, open-source projects, and community-driven research. For more information, visit notthehiddenwiki.com.

About CypSec: CypSec delivers risk management, access governance, and cybersecurity solutions for enterprises and governments. Through partnerships with nonprofit initiatives such as NTHW, it integrates open learning into operational frameworks. For more information, visit cypsec.de.

Media Contact: Daria Fediay, Chief Executive Officer at CypSec - daria.fediay@cypsec.de.