A Bright Spot in the Fight Against Cyber Crime
Pat Clawson - October 17th, 2011
There is no shortage of discussion on today’s global data protection challenges. Our country, the organizations within it and every individual who spends time online is at risk. Tell us something we don’t know, right?
Every day we are bombarded with headlines about major data breaches and tragic stories of people losing personal information, but there is one bright spot – university enrollment in computer security-related fields is growing.
I recently spoke with Peter Stephenson, PhD, VSM, CISSP, CISM, FICAF who has spent the last eight years at Norwich University in Northfield, VT in a variety of roles including director of Norwich University’s Center for Advanced Computing and Digital Forensics and chief information security officer for the university. In recent years, he has seen a significant uptick in interest and quality of students enrolling in the school’s Bachelors of Science in Information Assurance program.
“There is a lot of high profile cyber activity right now – everything from media reports about gangs like Anonymous to President Obama’s cyber initiatives and crime shows on TV like CSI. All of this raises awareness of this kind of career path and it affects students’ choices,” Stephenson said. Norwich University is a selective military college and one of 145 schools across the country considered a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. “Computer security is a popular career path for these students while in the military and, once they are out, they are often positioned ahead of the pack for civilian jobs,” he said.
While a long-term answer to an immediate-need problem, growing student interest and enrollment is critically important. To beat the bad guys, we must increase our national IT workforce. As I’ve blogged about before, lawmakers have said the U.S. has fewer than 1,000 people with advanced security skills while the reality remains – we still need 20,000 to 30,000 to match the scale of threats received.
More good news is students entering into information assurance programs are obviously making the right choice. Evidence of this point comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics which shows that for the third straight quarter, information security analysts have zero unemployment – a significant improvement over the national unemployment rate of 9.1 percent recorded in September. In fact, a recent Government Information Security article says the IT security workforce has increased 27 percent over six months.
I couldn’t agree with Peter more when he says, “Our only problem is we can’t turn students out fast enough; demand surpasses supply. We need to continue to educate – this is where our cyber warriors are coming from.” We absolutely need to train more IT security professionals and helping students understand this fact is an important initiative.
Improved awareness around cyber security issues will not only help grow our IT security workforce, it should also work to better educate people, on all levels, about basic online security measures. Many organizations obviously agree as October is designated National Cyber Security Awareness Month by the National Cyber Security Alliance which means there is no better time to center-stage an educational effort than right now. This is the perfect platform for IT teams to bring cyber security awareness to their organizations and to the forefront of boardroom discussions.
At Lumension, we are doing our part. In September, we launched a sizable education effort aimed at helping IT administrators raise awareness around important security improvements for organizations of all sizes. Specifically, we created resources for CEOs and end users that shed light on today’s threat environment and what people should look out for when it comes to protecting both their personal information and their company’s data.
Here’s to fighting the good fight.
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[...] There is no shortage of discussion on today’s global data protection challenges. Our country, the organizations within it and every individual who spends time online is at risk. Tell us something we don’t know, right? Every day we are bombarded with headlines about major data breaches and tragic stories of people losing personal information, but there is one bright spot – university enrollment in computer security-related fields is growing. I recently spoke with Peter Stephenson, PhD, VSM, CISSP, CISM, FICAF who has spent the last eight years at Norwich University in Northfield, VT in a variety of roles including director of Norwich University’s Center for Advanced Computing and Digital Forensics and chief information security officer for the university. In recent years, he has seen a significant uptick in interest and quality of students enrolling in the school’s Bachelors of Science in Information Assurance program. “There is a lot of high profile cyber activity right now – everything from media reports about gangs like Anonymous to President Obama’s cyber initiatives and crime shows on TV like CSI. All of this raises awareness of this kind of career path and it affects students’ choices,” Stephenson said. Norwich University is a selective military college and one of 145 schools across the country considered a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance (continue reading…) [...]