A treasure trove of training material

Need to improve your security skills? Need a refresher course to brush up on some skills you haven’t used in a while? Or are you just looking for some CPEs or CEUs to keep your certification valid?

The United States Department of Defense offers a great deal of security training, much of which is freely available to all comers. Your tax dollars paid for it, so don’t feel bad about using it. Besides, if you use it to improve your networks, then your networks are less likely to become a source of attack on government networks, so they’re happy for you to use most of it.

Here’s a hint: Anything that isn’t viewable by the general public is marked ” *(DoD PKI Cert req’d).” If you don’t see that marking, then it’s free for you to view. Just click the link marked “Launch Training.” Read more

How to get your first job in IT

I helped a friend of a former coworker with his resume this week. He’s looking to get their first jobs in IT, and found it difficult, even though he was applying for an entry-level helpdesk position.

His resume certainly indicated he was educated and able to hold down a job, but that wasn’t quite enough. Here’s what I had him do to beef up that resume to get past those initial rounds of screening and get interviewed.

Read more

CISSP vs. CASP vs. CEH

One of my coworkers invited me to watch a webinar with him today that promised to compare CompTIA’s new high-end certification with the CISSP.

I was skeptical at first, especially when I heard it was an 80-question, 150-minute test. But by the end, I mostly liked what I heard.

Read more

Certifications are a scam! A rebuttal

I overheard a couple of people talking a few weeks ago, and one said, flat out, “Certifications are a scam!”

As one who has two security certifications (Security+ and CISSP), I disagree. Now that I’ve had my first post-CISSP professional review, I disagree even more strongly.

Read more

Writing clearly vs. concisely

I had a disagreement last week with a technical writer who argues that a sentence should always have as few words as possible. No exceptions, for no reason.

I don’t agree.

Read more

Busted at the Safeway for phone phreaking

Software developer, author, and blogger Jeff Atwood wrote his confessions of the 1980s this week. As a teenager and not-quite-adult, he was a phone phreaker.

More of this went on than anyone wants to admit. Rob O’Hara has podcasted about it. Read more

The real benefits of having a CISSP

Another question from the big box o’ Google search queries: What are the real benefits of having a CISSP?

I don’t want to be flip, but here it is in two words: job security. Read more

Things I wish everyone knew about home computer security

I’m a security professional by trade, with two certifications. I’m not responsible for defending your computer networks, but I want your networks to be secure. There’s a really simple reason for that. If your computer and your network is secure, then it isn’t attacking mine. Or anyone else’s.

Several fellow subscribers to a train-related interest group that I like got hacked recently, and have been sending out spam messages. They’ve received a lot of advice in the hours since. Some of it has been good, and some not as good. So I tried to think of some things that people could do in about 30 minutes to keep the crooks at bay.

Incidentally, the computer crooks won’t be going away. Computer crime happens because the criminals can make more money doing that than doing something legal. The only way to make it stop is to make it too hard, so that getting a real job becomes more profitable. You won’t solve that problem in 30 minutes, but if we all take that single step down that road, we’ll make the world that much safer. So, with that, let’s roll up our sleeves. Read more

Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson needed to explain himself

I understand Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s predicament. I don’t agree with how he handled it.

You see, both Scott Thompson and I work in the technical industry, and neither of us have a degree in computer science, computer engineering, some other kind of engineering, high mathematics, or another socially accepted relevant-to-the-industry field. Read more

Quit sniveling about a tech skills gap and train your workers

Infoworld tells employers to quit sniveling about their workers not having enough skills and train them.

Sounds good. It worked in the organization where I work.

Read more