Certification Seen as Step Toward Professionalizing the Cyber-Workforce at RSA

It’s another beautiful day here in San Francisco and the RSA Conference – an annual information security event held by security solutions provider RSA – is underway with its usual buzz and excitement. So far, it has been a productive few days for CompTIA.

We started the week meeting with the Cybersecurity Credentials Collaborative (C3) – a group that we co-founded along with other certifying bodies such as (ISC)2 and GIAC. CompTIA was voted vice chair of the C3 and will be playing an active role in recruitment of new members and in continuing to work with DHS on their National Initiative for Cybersecurity Careers and Studies (NICCS) training catalog. The portal is designed to link training and certifications to cyber-careers. To learn more about the NICCS portal, go here.

CompTIA also participated in the National Academy of Sciences Professionalizing the Nation’s Cybersecurity Workforce Workshop. This day and a half long event had some great panelists including Mike McConnell, former director of the NSA and the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, and representatives from Microsoft, Google and GE, to name a few.

CompTIA participated in a panel during the workshop along with other C3 members and educators. Terry Erdle, executive vice president, skills certification for CompTIA, stressed that certification is not the end all, be all for professionalizing the workforce, but that it is the beginning and a necessary and critical step towards that goal as it establishes a baseline of knowledge. There will be another workshop taking place in San Antonio, Texas, in March and then we anticipate the NSA will put out a report on this topic.

All in all, it was a productive few days of exchanging ideas and opinions on the need to professionalize the cyber-workforce. As I prepare to head back to D.C. (and the cold!), I am already looking forward to next year.