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This morning I was driving to work while listening to a podcast of BNR Radio. BNR has a lot of podcasts about information technology. This time it was about Information Security and the future short on professionals in Information Security. In the show there was a guest, I can’t recall his name, but was the ‘so called Pro from the field’ , and although the guy had great knowledge, I thought the way he presented himself I had my questions about that :) But his message was clear.

The fact is that a lot of the current Information Security professionals are older people who have a lot of experience build through the years with knowledge that isn’t teached at schools. (I think that’s in almost any profession the deal but ok.) And with the globalization and advanced (and used) technologies in this time people take more risks of which people not even realize that the risk exists. So the expectation is that in the next 15 years one million (yes really that’s what he said) security professionals are needed in Europe.

One million……pfieuw…. That’s a lot isn’t is. I doubt those figures because that is really a big number but I do think there is going to be a shortage on the market simply due to the fact that there aren’t many educations from the schools in the direction of It and Information security. The reason for that is that it still isn’t seen as a profession on its own. A lot of IT related educations do pay attention on these topic but more as a part of a main topic.

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Besides the lack of education a Security Officer isn’t a really ‘sexy’ job, at least it doesn’t sound sexy lol :)

There are several positions one can fulfill, from the more technical roles to organizational (operational, strategic or tactical). Within this positions you can think of:

• Ethical Hacker
  A ethical hacker does hack for a living but on the good side of the law :) He uses the tools and ways a unethical hacker would use (criminal) to expose vulnerabilities to the organization it works for. Therefore they can take measures before the bad hackers will discover them. (sometimes they are too late)
• Information Security Officer
  An information security officer (ISO) makes sure processes and procedures are in place. For instance when there is a security breach an organization has to follow certain runbooks which are provided by the ISO (together with management). He also performs risk analysis’s for the organization to show potential risks and measures for mitigation
• Privacy Officer
  This is bit of a new role or often combined with ISO. A privacy officer assures that privacy policies are in place and are being followed. With the recent implementation of the GDPR it is mandatory for large organizations to have a privacy officer.
• Security Architect
  A security architect is just like other ICT architects responsible for the architecture of security components. In practice a Security Architect thinks and develops security principals for systems, applications and other components which the other architects has to take in account with their achitectures.

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Overall Security

A lot of people think security is a typical technical thing. As long as you have the latest patches and fixes of the vendors things are doing all right. That’s unfortunate not the case, most breakouts, cybercrimes and other security related incidents are caused by human interfering. You all now the examples of clicking on an scam mail, youtube movie which wasn’t a youtube movie or reacting on a message sended trough Facebook messenger for instance. All human faults caused by to little awareness. So to get your security on the right level the first thing is to be aware of the risks on- and offline.

1. If things look to good to be true, believe me…They are not true. I think most of you know the examples of mails received which stated you get 1.200.000 dollar from a charity lady. No reason, she just picked you…. Yeah right.
2. If you have to use a password (and that is the case for almost anything) try to use two factor authentication. For instance a password and google authenticator. That way if someone steals or guesses your password they still have to get the code form the authenticator, the possibility is small that they will have it. It also makes that you can use some less complex passwords if you want (I won’t advice this of course, but it is possible).
3. Be careful with your passwords. Try to never use the same passwords for different sites, apps or systems. When they compromise it on one system, the will try it on others… Bet on it ;)… If the password jungle grows to big you can always use password managers like Keepass or many others.
4. Never trust links sended by friends without a message. When I receive a mail or app with a link to something from a friend without a message I always send a app back with the question if the link is send by him and what it is. I had it twice already that the person’ss computer was infected (due to clicking on the wrong things) and he didn’t know his computer (virus) was sending links to everyone in the address book.

So the biggest way (and quickest) to be secure is starting with behavior of you and the people around you. Be aware of the risks, of your information and where you keep it… Then you’re more secure….

Have a safe day

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