New CompTIA Educational Video Series Helps Providers Increase Their Knowledge and Skills...
The tools and methods solution providers employ to keep their clients properly protected have become much more dynamic today. It is no longer just technology. It’s about processes and policies as well. That requires effort by a solution provider’s entire staff and their clients’ key decision makers. But that’s what it takes to build a successful IT security practice today. It’s certainly not easy.. It’s a continually moving target that requires solution providers to spend time and energy to stay relevant. Throw in the fact that a lot of SMB clients believe they are too small to warrant a cyber-attack. If fear isn’t working then how to you have conversations with your clients that are about business outcomes?.
That’s where the CompTIA IT Security Community comes in. The collaborative group of channel professionals has been working diligently over the past few years to deliver practice-enhancing resources for other solution providers. The new IT Security Tools video series on the community website and CompTIA You Tube channel is the result of their latest efforts. The community leadership flew to CompTIA’s headquarters and spent a day filming short videos sharing real-life customer stories and best practices that will help providers have conversations about business outcomes that encompass security practices. There isn’t one solution that fits all client needs, so understanding how to have the conversation that uncovers what the right solution is for that client is 50% of the battle.
From identifying vulnerabilities to the tools designed to best tackle specific data protection issues, the series targets the concerns of channel professionals. It’s all about focus. “So many resources are devoted to security by technology solution providers and so much money is spent on security readiness by organizations, yet there is a gap in understanding what it all means,” said Chris Johnson, co-founder and CEO, Untangled Solutions, and chairman of the CompTIA IT Security Community. “These candid conversations with experts in the field will help anyone getting into security, or anyone struggling to understand these security concepts.”
The IT Security Tools videos topics include:
- Backup Data and Recovery
- Archiving
- Anti-Malware
- Advanced Firewall + UTM (Unified Threat Management)
- Internet Content Filtering
- IPS / IDS (Intrusion Prevention/Intrusion Detection Systems)
- Policies & Compliance
- Encryption
- Password & Identity Management
One of the best things about this educational series is that it was created by IT channel professionals for IT channel professionals. They cover real world issues and share ideas and solutions that providers can readily incorporate into their own security practices.
“These videos are a way to connect with other security experts in the trenches, proposing and providing solutions for customers,” said Larry Schweitzer, president of CMIT Solutions of East and West Nassau and Executive Council Member of the IT Security Community who shares his insight on backup data, recovery and business continuity in the series. “We don’t know everything, and if we get one nugget of useful information that will help us from a video, it’s worth watching.”
Andrew Bagrin, CEO & Founder of My Digital Shield and Executive Council Member of the IT Security Community concurred on the educational value of the series. “Security is a continued learning state of mind. If we stopped learning at firewalls, we would be far behind right now. These videos will put our industry, as a whole, a giant step in the right direction. The key is to continue to take the proper small steps.”
He summarized the video series by sharing a quote attributed to one of America’s most recognized fictional military characters (G.I. Joe), “Education is a key part in improvement when it comes to security. Knowing is half the battle.”
Lisa Person is Director of Member Communities for CompTIA
