Gamers are the best candidates for cybersecurity jobs, according to a new report by McAfee.

The California-based software security firm says it surveyed 300 senior security managers and 650 security professionals at major corporations and 78% of respondents said that the current generation geeks, who grew up playing video games, are the best-suited candidates to fill up the cybersecurity roles.

Around 92% of the respondents believe that the gamers engaged in online competitions have the skills like endurance and perseverance that are crucial for cybersecurity roles, and that they can adopt a more sophisticated approach to counter the threats compared to non-gamers.

One-third of the senior managers expressed willingness to hire a gamer for a cybersecurity role even if he/she has no relevent training or experience.

72% of those surveyed believe that hiring experienced gamers in the IT department would help in filling up growing cybersecurity skill gap.

92% of survey’s respondents believe that the gamers engaged in online competitions have skills such as endurance and perseverance that are crucial for cybersecurity roles

According to McAfee, the businesses need to increase their cybersecurity teams by 24% to cope with the potential cybersecurity threats.

Around 84% of the respondents said it is difficult to find skilled professionals for cybersecurity roles.

81 of the participants believe that cybersecurity could be strengthened by implementing greater automation.

32% of those, however, said they are have not invested in automation due to lack resources as well as in-house skills.

Grant Bourzikas, chief information security officer at McAfee, stressed on the need of enhanced collaboration between human and machines to make cybersecurity more successful.

He said automated programs could deal with basic and small problems and enable the humans to address advance-level threats.

“Consider that nearly a quarter of respondents say that to do their job well, they need to increase their teams by a quarter, keeping our workforce engaged, educated, and satisfied at work is critical to ensuring organizations do not increase complexity in the already high-stakes game against cybercrime,” Bourzikas said in a statement.

A vast majority of the respondents of McAfee’s survey said that the talent shortage in the cybersecurity industry could be overhauled through gamification, a concept of applying game-playing elements to non-game activities.

57% of them said that they by playing games, the IT staff can figure out new ways through which breaches could take place.

43% said gamification promotes the culture of teamwork in an organization that is necessary for effective cybersecurity.