This post was originally published here by (ISC)² Management .
Let’s face it: Opportunity goes to the well-prepared. And living in dangerous and dynamic times, each of us needs to be so much better prepared to face tomorrow than we were today.
We’re all at risk. Everything we value, everyone we hold dear are held hostage to the badly misinformed decisions of the well-intended; are targets of opportunities to those with malice at heart. Those people, the “bad guys,” the black hats, are already outspending most legitimate businesses and organizations when it comes to investing in their knowledge, skills and abilities to attack.
The right certification, earned at the right time in your journey, is part of being prepared.
Ninety-nine percent of the headline-grabbing data breaches, the ransom attacks, the intrusions into information systems have been blamed on management making the wrong decisions. Managers and leaders in every organization desperately need people who can marry the technologies of IT security to the business needs for dependability, safety, reliability, confidentiality, and privacy for their information and information systems. They need us.
I keep hearing recruiters and industry groups saying that the North American market has over a million jobs begging for people who can collaborate with end users and their managers to keep the lifeblood of their companies and organizations secure.
Getting certified – in any domain – can and should be mind-expanding. It’s the opportunity to see things in different ways, while at the same time benchmarking what you know, what you can do with that knowledge, and how you think.
Mike Wills is an assistant professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU). He is also the Applied Information Technologies Programs chair and academic chair of the school’s Microsoft Software & Systems Academy (MSSA), which teaches foundational IT knowledge and skills to transitioning active duty military and honorably discharged veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces. To learn more, read his recent Q&A on the value of security certification.
Photo:CIO.com
