“I volunteered for ISACA’s Cybersecurity Task Force because ISACA has been around since the late 1960s and has advocated standards for the profession for 45 years. If someone has an ISACA certification, it shows me they have gone through a rigorous system of study, and they have working knowledge of a specific discipline inside of IT. The new Cybersecurity Nexus is a great program from ISACA, and I am proud to have been part of its development.”

“Becoming a successful security practitioner is hard. Ideal candidates are well-rounded and have a solid foundation in networking, operating systems, web technologies, incident response, and an understanding of the threat landscape and risk management. Perhaps most importantly, cybersecurity candidates must understand the business they are trying to protect and provide good customer service. If you don’t do those two things the rest won’t matter.”

“Security is always one of the top three items on a CIO’s mind, yet IT and computer science programs at the university level are not allocating a proportional amount of training to cybersecurity. Today, there is a sizeable gap between formal education and real world needs. This, in itself, is an area requiring immediate focus so that the industry can get better at detecting and mitigating cyberthreats.”

“Specific training and credentialing to meet the needs of individuals in the cybersecurity profession is essential. Keeping abreast of industry trends, threats and vulnerabilities is an incredibly important part of being a professional. A holistic cybersecurity program enables the cybersecurity professional to keep up to date, obtain the relevant credentials, and have access to whitepapers, frameworks, journals and other guidance. ISACA offers extraordinary resources across the IT disciplines that it covers, and cybersecurity is no exception to this.”