Two Orange County cities are among the top destinations in the country for cybersecurity professionals, according to recent report by GoodCall LLC.
The study analyzed data from 221 U.S. cities and generated scores based on available jobs, salary potential, affordability and amenities.
Newport Beach was No. 4, and Irvine No. 26 overall, according to the South Carolina-based data cruncher.
The coastal community scored particularly high on salary and amenities potential—only Santa Barbara and San Francisco were higher—but took a knock on affordability.
Master-planned Irvine was boosted by salary potential and amenities, as well. It ranked No. 34 on the number of jobs in the cybersecurity sector, while Newport Beach came in at No. 35.
The two biggest clusters of employment in the hot sector are in the Beltway area around Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley.
The findings highlight an emerging cybersecurity hub in OC, a formation the Business Journal has chronicled over the past year or so. Influential companies include several Irvine-based entities, including security software makers Cylance Inc., CrowdStrike Inc. and SecureAuth Corp., as well as electronic forensic specialist Susteen and the recently established Cybersecurity Policy and Research Institute at the University of California-Irvine.
Cybersecurity has become a global hot-button issue fueled by the recent release of thousands of classified documents by WikiLeaks and allegations that Russia’s government attempted to tamper with the U.S. presidential election.
More than 554 million records were breached in the first six months of last year in 974 disclosed incidents, according to the Gemalto Breach Level Index H1 2016 Report.
Menlo Park-based Cybersecurity Ventures predicts companies and consumers will spend $1 trillion globally over the next five years on cybersecurity, an annual growth rate of 12% to 15% through 2021.
