Cisco Executive Urges Specificty in IT Security Training, Hiring
Tech industry observers often address the general lack of highly capable cybersecurity professionals – the so-called cybersecurity skills gap – from a birdseye perspective, looking down at the employment landscape from several thousand feet in the air and vaguely urging for more training and education of prospective information security workers. Cisco executive James Risler thinks that such plaintively wishful thinking isn't helping to solve the problem. In a post to the Talking Tech with Cisco blog at Cisco Learning Network, Risler writes that employers and CISOs need to be more intentional, carefully assessing the specific needs of their businesses and organizations, and then communicating those specifics to colleges, universities, and other training outlets. As Risler sees it, the "one size fits all" filter that most people use when viewing the problem isn't helping to produce workers who are well suited to fill actual jobs and perform actual tasks that meet the needs of employers. Could it be that the best way to get the right people for a given job is to encourage training and education in the skills actually required? It's a worth taking the time to weigh Risler's words.
Are We Actually Getting Better at Securing U.S. Elections?
The specter of foreign interference in U.S. elections, something that would have been deemed unthinkable 20 years ago, is now a matter of grave and present concern. With 2019 elections just weeks away, and the 2020 presidential election looming up in the near distance, cybersecurity expert Alan Shark swims into treacherous waters in a recent post to the IT Career News blog of tech industry association CompTIA. Shark says that the United States' more than 8,000 electoral jurisdictions are like blood in the water to hungry hackers. Shark also sinks his teeth into the Handbook for Elections of Infrastructure Security of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which he thinks points the discussion in the right direction. Reliable security is possible, Shark says, but there's still work to be done.
ISACA Blogger Says Women in Leadership Is Good for Business
Lack of participation at all levels from skilled female workers and leaders has long been a sticking point in the growth and diversification of the global IT workplace. Despite the high-profile industry presence of female exeuctives like Marissa Mayer and Sherly Sandberg, a big part of the problem is the general lack of women in visible leadership roles. In a recent post to the ISACA Now Blog of cybersecurity and governance association ISACA, Zainab Hameed of ISACA's SheLeadsTech program discusses ways that tech companies can contribute to making the industry more welcoming to women by intentionally hiring women to serve in leadership roles. One point Hameed makes right off the top is that gender diversity isn't just good for its own sake – it's also good for the bottom line. Want your enterprise to become more profitable? Research has shown that adding more women in leadership roles fosters growth.
Oracle Certification Profiles OCM from Eastern Europe
Speaking, as we just were, of increasing gender diversity in the global IT workplace, there's a cool profile over at the Oracle Certification Blog. The subject is a woman who has achieved the Oracle Certified Master level of certification, the first person in her native nation of Georgia to ever do so. Mariami Kupatadze, who became OCM-certified in 2016, is senior solutions architect for FlashGrid, a Silicon Valley-headquartered high availability database provider. After picking up some Oracle skills while attending college, Kupatadze began her career in IT working for a major bank in Georgia as an Oracle Database Administrator. Regular readers of Certification Watch know that we're suckers for a good certification profile. Click over and read Kupatadze's story, told largely in her own words. You'll be glad you met her.
Firewalk With Me
Speaking of interesting personal stories, the team at Certification Magazine has another fun one up this week. Software engineer Jorge Merino-Huerta of IT education provider TestOut (which published Certification Magazine) shares his experience of earning a very different sort of certification than the kind most often discussed here. Merino-Huerta became a certified firewalker a number of years ago – yup, the kind who walks barefoot over hot coals. He relates his experience to the trepidation often experienced by IT newcomers. Technology is frequently intimidating to people who don't have a lot of direct experience with computers and software. Just like with walking barefoot over hot coals, however, taking the first step (and then the next, and the next) is the best way to overcome your fears and enter a whole new world.
That's all for this edition of Certification Watch. Please keep your certification news and tips coming to the GoCertify News Editor.
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