Stephen Northcutt of the SANS Institute: Need for Information Security Certifications

The Information Security Media Group podcast series continues with insights from Stephen Northcutt, CEO of the SANS Technology Institute, a postgraduate level IT security college, and an acknowledged expert in training and certification. He founded the Global Information Assurance Certification (GIAC) in 1999 to validate the real-world skills of IT security professionals. GIAC provides assurance that a certified individual has practical awareness, knowledge and skills in key areas of computer and network and software security. Northcutt is author/coauthor of Incident Handling Step-by-Step, Intrusion Signatures and Analysis, Inside Network Perimeter Security 2nd Edition, IT Ethics Handbook, SANS Security Essentials, SANS Security Leadership Essentials and Network Intrusion Detection 3rd edition. He was the original author of the Shadow Intrusion Detection system before accepting the position of Chief for Information Warfare at the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization. Stephen founded the GIAC certification and currently serves as CEO of the SANS Institute. Listen as Northcutt describes the state of information security training today, and why colleges and universities still need to bring more technical focus to their information security curriculum, why there is still a real need for more technically-trained information security professionals to fight the influx of malware and Eastern European, Russian and Brazilian hackers who are coming to invade your institution. He explains the need for more technically-trained professionals versus "policy" professionals; and where he sees the industry growth heading, finally he gives some words of advice to those starting out in information security.