Jon Oltsik
Author Archives: Jon Oltsik
- Home → Author's archive:
Jon Oltsik
0
Cybersecurity, Business, and IT Relationships
As the old adage states: People are the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain. This is a problem because strong cybersecurity depends upon both individual skills and organizational collaboration between cybersecurity, business, and IT groups. To use another analogy, cybersecurity is a team sport. If the cybersecurity team doesn’t communicate and collaborate well with other groups within an organization, it will be difficult if not impossible to stay current with what’s needed for security incident prevention, detection, and response.Unfortunately, this is the situation too often today. According to a new research report from ESG and the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA), 20% of cybersecurity professionals claim that the relationship between cybersecurity and IT teams is “fair or poor” today, while 27% rate the relationship between cybersecurity and business team as “fair or poor” (Note: I am an ESG employee).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Cybersecurity, business and IT relationships
As the old adage states: People are the weakest link in the cybersecurity chain. This is a problem because strong cybersecurity depends upon both individual skills and organizational collaboration between cybersecurity, business and IT groups. To use another analogy, cybersecurity is a team sport. If the cybersecurity team doesn’t communicate and collaborate well with other groups within an organization, it will be difficult—if not impossible—to stay current with what’s needed for security incident prevention, detection and response.Unfortunately, this is the situation too often today. According to a new research report from ESG and the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA)—The State of Cybersecurity Professional Careers—20 percent of cybersecurity professionals claim that the relationship between cybersecurity and IT teams is “fair or poor” today, while 27 percent rate the relationship between cybersecurity and business team as “fair or poor."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Recruiting and retaining cybersecurity talent
As we know, there is an acute shortage of cybersecurity talent available on a global basis. For example, previous ESG research from 2016 reveals that 46 percent of organizations say they have a “problematic shortage” of cybersecurity talent at present.Unfortunately, the cybersecurity skills shortage goes beyond headcount alone. According to a recently published report from ESG and the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA)—The State of Cyber Security Professional Careers, Part 1—cybersecurity teams can be in a constant state of flux due to issues with employee satisfaction, a lack of adequate training and staff attrition. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Cybersecurity Canon Book Report: There Will Be Cyberwar
Given that it’s national cybersecurity awareness month, I hope that all cybersecurity professionals are familiar with the Cybersecurity Canon. For those that are not, the goal of the cybersecurity canon is as follows:To identify a list of must-read books for all cybersecurity practitioners – be they from industry, government or academia -- where the content is timeless, genuinely represents an aspect of the community that is true and precise, reflects the highest quality and, if not read, will leave a hole in the cybersecurity professional’s education that will make the practitioner incomplete. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Cybersecurity Canon book review: There Will Be Cyberwar
Given it’s national cybersecurity awareness month, I hope all cybersecurity professionals are familiar with the Cybersecurity Canon. For those who are not, the goal of the cybersecurity canon is as follows: To identify a list of must-read books for all cybersecurity practitioners—be they from industry, government or academia—where the content is timeless, genuinely represents an aspect of the community that is true and precise, reflects the highest quality and, if not read, will leave a hole in the cybersecurity professional’s education that will make the practitioner incomplete.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Cybersecurity Canon book review: There Will Be Cyberwar
Given it’s national cybersecurity awareness month, I hope all cybersecurity professionals are familiar with the Cybersecurity Canon. For those who are not, the goal of the cybersecurity canon is as follows: To identify a list of must-read books for all cybersecurity practitioners—be they from industry, government or academia—where the content is timeless, genuinely represents an aspect of the community that is true and precise, reflects the highest quality and, if not read, will leave a hole in the cybersecurity professional’s education that will make the practitioner incomplete.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
IT attrition could help address the cybersecurity skills shortage
When it comes to the cybersecurity skills shortage, ESG research reveals the following: Forty-six percent of organizations claim that they have a “problematic shortage” of cybersecurity skills. This represents an increase of 18 percent compared to 2015. A vast majority (87 percent) admit that it is “very difficult,” “difficult,” or “somewhat difficult” to recruit and hire cybersecurity professionals. Yup, there is a definite shortage of cybersecurity professionals available, so recruiters are tripping over each other as they try to poach talent from their existing employers. According to a recently published report by ESG and the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA), 46 percent of cybersecurity professionals are solicited to consider other cybersecurity jobs by various types of recruiters at least once per week! This situation has led to salary inflation and massive disruption. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
IT attrition could help address the cybersecurity skills shortage
When it comes to the cybersecurity skills shortage, ESG research reveals the following: Forty-six percent of organizations claim that they have a “problematic shortage” of cybersecurity skills. This represents an increase of 18 percent compared to 2015. A vast majority (87 percent) admit that it is “very difficult,” “difficult,” or “somewhat difficult” to recruit and hire cybersecurity professionals. Yup, there is a definite shortage of cybersecurity professionals available, so recruiters are tripping over each other as they try to poach talent from their existing employers. According to a recently published report by ESG and the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA), 46 percent of cybersecurity professionals are solicited to consider other cybersecurity jobs by various types of recruiters at least once per week! This situation has led to salary inflation and massive disruption. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
The Truth About Cybersecurity Certifications
It’s a common trait amongst cybersecurity professionals. When they meet each other, discuss their qualifications with prospective employers, or print their business cards, there is often an alphabet soup of initials by their names, specifying the many certifications they’ve achieved.Now some of these certifications are certainly worthwhile but over the last few years, the entire industry has gone gaga with dozens of new cybersecurity certifications offered by for-profit organizations. This has led to a marketing push with a consistent message that more certifications equate to more money, knowledge, and opportunities for cybersecurity professionals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
The Truth About Cybersecurity Certifications
It’s a common trait amongst cybersecurity professionals. When they meet each other, discuss their qualifications with prospective employers, or print their business cards, there is often an alphabet soup of initials by their names, specifying the many certifications they’ve achieved.Now some of these certifications are certainly worthwhile but over the last few years, the entire industry has gone gaga with dozens of new cybersecurity certifications offered by for-profit organizations. This has led to a marketing push with a consistent message that more certifications equate to more money, knowledge, and opportunities for cybersecurity professionals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
The truth about cybersecurity certifications
It’s a common trait amongst cybersecurity professionals. When they meet each other, discuss their qualifications with prospective employers, or print their business cards, there is often an alphabet soup of initials by their names, specifying the many certifications they’ve achieved.Now, some of these certifications are certainly worthwhile, but over the last few years, the entire industry has gone gaga with dozens of new cybersecurity certifications offered by for-profit organizations. This has led to a marketing push with a consistent message that more certifications equate to more money, knowledge and opportunities for cybersecurity professionals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
The State of Cybersecurity Professional Careers
I’ve written about and researched the cybersecurity skills shortage for many years. For example, ESG research indicates that 46% of organizations claim to have a “problematic shortage” of cybersecurity skills this year – an 18% increase from 2015 (note: I am an ESG employee).Of course, I’m not the only one looking into the cybersecurity skills shortage. For example: According to Peninsula Press (a project of the Stanford University Journalism Program), more than 209,000 U.S.-based cybersecurity jobs remained unfilled, and postings are up 74 percent over the past five years. Analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that the demand for cybersecurity professionals is expected to grow 53 percent by 2018. So many researchers agree then that we don’t have enough skilled prospects to fill all of the open cybersecurity jobs. Okay but that puts a heck of a lot of burden on the existing cybersecurity workforce. Are they up to the task? Do they have the right training? Are they managing their careers appropriately?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
The state of cybersecurity professional careers
I’ve written about and researched the cybersecurity skills shortage for many years. For example, ESG research indicates that 46 percent of organizations claim to have a “problematic shortage” of cybersecurity skills this year—an 18 percent increase from 2015.Of course, I’m not the only one looking into the cybersecurity skills shortage. For example: According to Peninsula Press (a project of the Stanford University Journalism Program), more than 209,000 U.S.-based cybersecurity jobs remained unfilled, and postings are up 74 percent over the past five years. Analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that the demand for cybersecurity professionals is expected to grow 53 percent by 2018. So, many researchers agree, then, that we don’t have enough skilled prospects to fill all of the open cybersecurity jobs. OK, but that puts a heck of a lot of burden on the existing cybersecurity workforce. Are they up to the task? Do they have the right training? Are they managing their careers appropriately?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
Splunk intent on extending cybersecurity leadership
I attended the Splunk user conference earlier this week (.Conf2016) and came away pretty impressed. Since I started watching Splunk years ago, the company climbed from a freemium log management and query tool for IT and security nerds to one of the leading security analytics and operations platform. Not surprisingly then, security now represents around 40% of Splunk’s revenue. Given the state of the cybersecurity market, Splunk wants to work with existing customers and get new ones to join in to build on this financial and market success.To that end, Splunk really highlighted three enhancements for its enterprise security product:1. An ecosystem and architecture for incident response. Splunk often acts as a security nexus for its customers, integrating disparate data into a common platform. It now wants to extend this position from analytics to incident response by building IR capabilities into its own software and extending this architecture to partners through APIs, workflows, and automation. Splunk calls this adaptive response. For now, Splunk doesn’t see itself as an IR automation and orchestration platform for complex enterprise environments (in fact Phantom and ServiceNow were both exhibiting at the event) but it does Continue reading
0
Splunk intent on extending cybersecurity leadership
I attended the Splunk user conference earlier this week (.Conf2016) and came away pretty impressed. Since I started watching Splunk years ago, the company climbed from a freemium log management and query tool for IT and security nerds to one of the leading security analytics and operations platform. Not surprisingly then, security now represents around 40 percent of Splunk’s revenue. Given the state of the cybersecurity market, Splunk wants to work with existing customers and get new ones to join in to build on this financial and market success.To that end, Splunk really highlighted three enhancements for its enterprise security product:1. An ecosystem and architecture for incident response. Splunk often acts as a security nexus for its customers, integrating disparate data into a common platform. It now wants to extend this position from analytics to incident response by building IR capabilities into its own software and extending this architecture to partners through APIs, workflows and automation. Splunk calls this adaptive response. For now, Splunk doesn’t see itself as an IR automation and orchestration platform for complex enterprise environments (in fact Phantom and ServiceNow were both exhibiting at the event), but it does want to use its Continue reading
0
Keeping up with incident response
A fire department in a large city certainly has a difficult job, but its mission is fairly straightforward. When a fire is detected, the fire department dispatches an appropriately sized staff to assess, contain and put out the fire, clean up, investigate what happened, and prepare themselves for the next blaze.Yup, it's a pretty simple process when a manageable number of fires are burning. But what would happen if there were hundreds or thousands of simultaneous infernos?My guess is that a senior fire chief (and perhaps other participants from local government and law enforcement) would have to make decisions on which blazes to resource and which to ignore. These decisions would certainly be based upon information analysis and best practices, but there is still some risk that the disregarded fires would end up being far worse than expected, turn into disasters, and call into question the judgement of all involved.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
SIEM Market Dynamics in Play
When I started focusing on the security market 14 years ago, the SIEM market was burgeoning market populated by vendors such as CA, e-Security, Intellitactics, and NetForensics. In the intervening timeframe, the SIEM market has grown, thrived, and changed every few years. SIEM started as a central repository for event correlation for perimeter security devices. It then morphed into a reporting engine for governance and compliance. In a subsequent phase, SIEM became more of a query and log management tools for security analysts. Fast forward to 2016 and SIEM has taken on a much bigger scope – an enterprise software platform that anchors security operations centers (SOCs). In this role, SIEM platforms can also include:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
SIEM market dynamics in play
When I started focusing on the security market 14 years ago, the security information and event management (SIEM) market was a burgeoning market populated by vendors such as CA, e-Security, Intellitactics and NetForensics. In the intervening timeframe, the SIEM market has grown, thrived and changed every few years. SIEM started as a central repository for event correlation for perimeter security devices. It then morphed into a reporting engine for governance and compliance. In a subsequent phase, SIEM became more of a query and log management tool for security analysts. Fast forward to 2016, and SIEM has taken on a much bigger scope—an enterprise software platform that anchors security operations centers (SOCs). In this role, SIEM platforms can also include:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
The Era of Identity-based Applications
Identity and access management (IAM) has always been a heavy burden for large organizations. Why? Multiple folks across companies – business people, software developers, IT operations, human resources, security, compliance auditors, etc. – play some role across the IAM spectrum.As a result of this IAM group hug, technology decisions tend to be made tactically without any central oversight or integrated strategy but this behavior may be changing. According to ESG research, 49% of large organizations claim they now have a formal enterprise-wide strategy in which IAM technology decisions are managed by central IT (note: I am an ESG employee). In other words, someone in IT is now responsible and accountable for all IAM technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
0
The era of identity-based applications
Identity and access management (IAM) has always been a heavy burden for large organizations. Why? Multiple folks across companies—business people, software developers, IT operations, human resources, security, compliance auditors, etc.— play some role across the IAM spectrum.As a result of this IAM group hug, technology decisions tend to be made tactically without any central oversight or integrated strategy. But this behavior may be changing. According to ESG research, 49 percent of large organizations claim they now have a formal enterprise-wide strategy in which IAM technology decisions are managed by central IT. In other words, someone in IT is now responsible and accountable for all IAM technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here