Category: Cybersecurity

I have made no secret of my distain for the ‘GDPR Practitioner Certification‘ badge, and I still have no time for it, or its recipients who pass it off as real-world experience. But what alternatives are there if you want to obtain some form of data protection certification / privacy education?

The de facto standard, and really the only player in town, is the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), and their flagship badge, the Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP), is the most widely recognised and respected acronym you can add to your CV/resume. It’s the equivalent of the CISSP for those of us in the cybersecurity industry.

Continue reading “How Valid Can the IAPP’s Certifications Be?” →

It is with some surprise (and frankly, confusion) that I now realise not all security professionals think information security policies (ISPs) should [must!] be aspirational in nature.

By ‘aspirational’, I mean that at least some aspects of your ISPs require a greater degree of control / implementation / assurance etc. than you are currently capable of achieving in reality.

The ‘accurate policy’ proponents feel that if the policies do not reflect exactly what you are doing, then what you are doing is in violation of your own policies, thereby effectively rendering those policies useless. I assume, by extension, that they consider compliance with any regulatory regime is also nullified.

Continue reading “If Your Policies Aren’t Aspirational, Why Bother Having Any?” →

Each time I think I’m getting to the heart of the challenges faced by those on all sides of cybersecurity recruiting, a further complexity raises its ugly head.

While I still think that job titles are horribly limiting, that job descriptions completely miss the point, and that the cybersecurity skill-gap misconception is mostly the fault of the organisations asking for help, there’s no getting away from the fact that cybersecurity recruiters are doing themselves no favours.

Continue reading “Cybersecurity Recruiters: Your Failures Explained” →

I am absolutely sick to death of security vendors using the buzz-phrase Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a descriptor for their product or service.

Because:

  1. AI does not even exist yet, the most you can say is that it’s very clever programming;
    o
  2. Not everyone is a fan of AI.

So, by trying to claim your product uses AI, you have now alienated 2 types of people; 1) those who hate bullsh*t artists, and 2) the paranoid.

In cybersecurity, there are a lot of both.

Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence (AI)? You’ve Just Lost Two Buyers” →

It is with thanks to Chad Loder that I write this blog. His post on LinkedIn made me laugh out loud and is what inspired me to propose the CEO Cybersecurity Challenge (#ceocybersecuritychallenge). The very simple post was:

From: Security Team
To: All Employees
Subject: Security Awareness Training

To opt out of this year’s security training, click here.

Security experts will instantly see the simple genius of this social engineering tactic. In just 10 words you get:

Continue reading “The CEO Cybersecurity Challenge” →