Is There a Cyber Doctor in the House?

Given the increased complexities and sophistication of cyber adversaries today, the demand for skilled IT security practitioners has outweighed the supply — particularly those skilled in security operations, intelligence, data analytics and forensic analysis. Drawing parallels to healthcare, increases in medical device, imaging, research/development and clinical care has involved much the same way. These advances in technologies have given us the ability to detect faster, “diagnose” and prevent. The outgrowth has created a broad shortage of practitioners with both the clinical/tactical skills and the operational experience necessary within today’s evolving threat landscape. So what does a Cyber Doctor look like and what are we doing to educate and train the next generation of “security care givers”?

Two individuals come to mind at RSA and I am proud to highlight them here both of whom can be addressed as “doctor”.

Azeem Aleem, Ph.D. leads the Advanced Cyber Defense (ACD) practice for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). He not only leads operational engagements in the field but is an avid researcher, author and security instructor. Prior to RSA, Azeem was the director for the Center for e-Crime for the University of Portsmouth (UK) and earlier, led cyber security consultancy services for advanced threats within various law enforcement agencies, public and private sector organizations such as The Security Institute, IBM and Transcend Technology.

Stephen McCombie, Ph.D. leads the Advanced Cyber Defense (ACD) practice for Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) and like Azeem, is a well-balanced practitioner both in the field and as a researcher and instructor. Prior to RSA, Stephen was the founder and manager of the National Australia Bank’s (nab) Computer Emergency Response Team (nabCERT) which won AusCERT’s Award for IT Security Organizational Excellence in 2009 and led computer emergency response operations for IBM as well as spending over 14 years as a computer crimes detective.

I know that not everyone will be able to attain a Ph.D. and amass the years of credentials that my colleagues above have, but near term the education and training needs for security operators is changing with new models and curriculums to address the dynamic nature of skills develop. Although the industry is riddled with courseware, the key to affecting real time results for developing skills falls within educating in environments based on “use cases”, modeling and simulation and training to muscle memory such that the student spends more time applying the skills in short bursts rather than theoretical models abstracted above what’s happening in the field and what each student will likely encounter. RSA has taken the time to turn these models on its head with its Advanced Cyber Defense training courses applying counter threat approaches to its curriculum as well integrated lab based approaches rather than “lecture-ware”. Click here for more information these approaches and our course curriculum.