Last week marked the 2015 flagship event of the RSA Conference, which annually focuses on issues, developments and best practices in information security for information technology professionals. The latest conference, which spanned April 20 to April 24, was reportedly even more popular than in previous years, filling San Francisco’s Moscone Center with more than 33,000 attendees, spread across 490 sessions and speeches.
The industry news site eWeek claims that the growth in popularity is actually a bad sign for internet security, as the size of a convention tends to reflect the amount of anxiety that exists over attacks and security vulnerabilities in the past year. In fact, eWeek author Sean Michael Kerner says that the RSA Conference was characterized by an “air of defeatism,” with some presenters declaring outright that the information technology industry will never be able to keep 100 percent ahead of hackers and internal security threats.
But bad news for an industry can actually be good news for individual job seekers, and the warnings and concerns at this year’s conference are a good example of that. Seeing as the industry is a keenly aware of security vulnerabilities and believes it is facing an uphill battle for the foreseeable future, careers specializing in information security can be expected to be in high demands for years to come. If that is a field that holds some appeal for you, now is the time to pursue the education and online information technology training that might prepare you to combat the ever-growing threats to information technology security.
And the RSA Conference provided some clues to the types of training that might be especially worthwhile. Other such events can be expected to do the same. Naturally, software training courses and general online information technology training are sources of a basic groundwork in the field and in the central resources used against online threats. But less obviously, aspiring information technology security professionals can also make themselves more attractive to employers with Agile training, certified scrum master training, and systems analyst certification.
According to eWeek, a presentation by Department of Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson pointed out that the agency is using agile methodologies as part of its ongoing effort to mitigate cyber threats. Thus, being well-versed in Agile training could even give an aspiring information technology professional a leg up on finding high-profile placements in the federal government. This is an especially good prospect not only because of the general pessimism about security in the information technology industry today but also because of the growth of serious cyber-threats coming from places like Iran and North Korea.
The RSA Conference also made clear that information technology security is not just a matter of combating hacking but also a matter of designing systems and managing personnel in a way that mitigates internal threats and also eliminates the possibility of low-level breaches setting off chain reactions. This speaks to the importance of systems analyst certification and business data analyst training in the information technology security job placements of the near future – something that was pointed out by Billy Beane, the central figure in the book and film “Moneyball,” as he gave a presentation on how data analytics can help to identify potential risks before they become security breaches.
A visit to the RSA Conference or similar security-focused conferences can certainly provide attendees with helpful hints about what sorts of online information technology training to pursue in order to stay ahead of a consistently challenging career path. And with RSA being thoroughly centered on San Francisco, California, the relationships one builds there could be especially helpful in leading one toward information technology placements in the Bay Area.
If you’re in the information technology security profession or are thinking of entering it and you missed the RSA Conference this year, keep it in mind for next year and keep your eyes open for other conferences along the same lines.