In recent years, organizations that have experienced breaches have been forced by law (in many cases) to report the occurrence. Therefore, we've seen a spike in incident reports. Collectively we can all learn from those reports to attempt to prevent similar occurrences in our own organizations.
With the crackdown on certification cheaters, the ITCC strongly urges candidates to know and follow the certifying agencies' security policies. They are posted online and must be acknowledged when a candidate wants to take a test.
The integrity of IT certification is vitally important to everyone. IT, as an industry and a profession, is largely unregulated. There are no government standards that define the qualifications of any level of IT professional. There is no licensing process or required educational background. In essence, anyone can declare himself a "network engineer" or a "systems analyst." It's the Wild West of professions.
A member of the Exam Security Team from a major IT solutions vendor recently received an e-mail from an IT professional who owned up to the fact that he had inadvertently cheated to prepare for his certification exam.
For the first time ever, companies that develop and administer IT certification exams are working together to combat a problem that has largely been swept under the rug for years: certification fraud.
Would you compromise your personal integrity for $80? How about risk your IT career for $200? Of course not, you say. But you already have -- if you've ever used certification-examination "study materials" from TestKing, Pass4Sure or hundreds of test-preparation Web sites just like them.
About two years ago, I had a conversation with a family member about his Stone Age practice of using cash and checks for almost every purchase. He admitted to owning just one credit card and no ATM or debit card, and he didn't even know about online banking.
Symantec seems to be one of those companies that toiled for 25 years to become an overnight success. The company has grown rapidly through mergers and acquisitions, not the least of which was systems management company Altiris in April 2007. Now in 2008, Symantec is a powerhouse player in security, systems management, application virtualization, storage management and compliance.
I have a friend who works for a large company, and he's quite a jokester. He loves to send off-color jokes to his closest friends. I recently cautioned him about doing this from work, telling him he could get himself in trouble with his employer. He said, "Don't worry, I only send these jokes to a few people who really know me. They know I'm only kidding around."
When I went to an IT technical conference recently, the first thing that struck me was how old the attendees were. Most seemed to be men and women in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. Baby boomers at their best -- what I used to call "gray hairs" before I became one of them.
I can see it now: I'm in the middle of a PowerPoint presentation to a potential client. Just as I get to the part where I am explaining the true value of my proposal, up pops an advertisement for a feminine hygiene product. You laugh now, but this could become a reality if Microsoft moves into an advertising-supported software delivery model.
Do any of these situations describe your company?
Do you know someone who has fallen hook, line and sinker for a phishing scam? Unfortunately, some of the scams are getting quite sophisticated, and it takes a savvy surfer to avoid falling prey.
If it doesn't exist already, we might soon see a certification created for enterprise software licence management. This certification would combine technical knowledge of software usage with financial knowledge of the software value. The process of figuring out what kinds of licences are best for your organization, and tracking them, gets more complicated every day. The whole IT industry is ready for a shake up in the way that customers pay for software use. And for once, customers are driving this paradigm shift.
One quick scan of the business press will tell you that on-the-job ethics seem to be at an all-time low. In case after case, big executives are caught in their webs of corporate deception. But the irony is that it is becoming incredibly difficult to lie, cheat and steal in a digital world.