New CSA+ a Boon to Cybersecurity Professionals
Posted by TestOut Staff on
As someone who has had his identity stolen, I’m a big fan of cybersecurity. Please don’t accuse me of physically abusing a deceased equine. I know I’ve written on this topic a number of times before, but it’s important. Besides, beating a dead horse is an idiom that means “to continue in an endeavor that is a waste of time since the outcome has already been decided.” The outcome of the cybersecurity war is still very much in question.
The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), the cybersecurity clearinghouse for Homeland Security, tracks millions of cyberattacks a day against government systems, and they are seeing a disturbing uptick in attacks. States are also experiencing a massive increase. In 2011, the State of Utah reported an average of 1 million cyberattacks per day on state government networks. By 2013, the number had risen to an average of 20 million per day. Most of those attacks came from computerized robotic systems, not people, but the problem isn’t going away anytime soon.
Fortunately, the cybersecurity arsenal has a new weapon. CompTIA, the world’s leading information technology association, just released a great new vendor-neutral cert, CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CSA+). CSA+ bridges the skills gap between CompTIA Security+ and CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner, and is a convenient and thorough way to create a “vendor-neutral cybersecurity career pathway.”
What makes CSA+ unique is that it is the first cert to utilize behavioral analytics to assess and characterize cyber threats. According to CompTIA, the new credential offers a “broad-spectrum validation of knowledge and skills required to configure and use cyber-threat detection tools, perform data analysis and interpret the results to identify vulnerabilities, threats and risks to an organization. It certifies knowledge of a data-driven approach to information security."
In a statement to the press, CompTIA President and CEO Todd Thibodeaux, said the Internet of Things is “opening up potentially billions of new points of vulnerability that need to be secured. It's an economic and societal imperative to train and certify hundreds of thousands of IT professionals with the analytical skills they need to address the complexity and diversity of threats as they multiply."
Demand for cybersecurity professionals, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is projected to grow by 18 percent in the next seven years. That makes it the “fastest growing job role in the U.S. workforce.”
CSA+ is an excellent addition to your cybersecurity skills, especially if you already have CompTIA Security+. If you need CompTIA Security+, remember that TestOut’s Security+ courseware is the best way to train. As an Authorized Partner in the CompTIA Content Partner Program, TestOut’s Security+ courseware is validated as CompTIA Approved Quality Content (CAQC). This means it’s been verified to properly prepare you to take CompTIA's Security+ (SY0-401) exam.
CompTIA's approval, combined with TestOut's quality and innovation, means you can have confidence that you are using the best security courseware on the market.
About the Author — Calvin Harper is an associate editor for GoCertify and a veteran of the publishing industry. Back before his identity was stolen, Calvin was a freewheeling Elvis impersonator and licensed minister known for his ability to conduct an entire marriage ceremony using only lyrics from Elvis songs.