I think that popular media portrays cybersecurity as an exciting battle between the hacker “bad guys” and the defender “good guys.” There are a lot of abstractions involved as well that attempt to make the action of a cyberattack more exciting for a lay audience. This is ironic, because the reality of cybersecurity is that while it is interesting to those who work in and around the field, it could hardly be described as exciting. There are seldom active battles between a hacker and a defender fighting each other syncronously; the actual majority of cyber defenses are automated, and much of the investigation is performed far after the hacker has already breached a system. I think that these depictions of cybersecurity have given the field a much larger boost in popularity and have also heavily served to popularize the roles of penetration testers and hacktivists, but often not so much those of the cyber defender; the area with the real shortage of talent and focus.