With the cost of cybercrime to businesses in the Middle East exceeding $1bn and predictions that the volume of cyber attacks will increase, CompTIA, a vendor-neutral skills certifications body for the global IT workforce, has urged the regional IT market to take the provision of ongoing cyber security training seriously as it is crucial to reducing the risk.
“Staff armed with certifications from associations like CompTIA can perform support and security tasks more efficiently and reliably,” said Graham Hunter, vice president, Skills Certifications, CompTIA. “Certified personnel are more vigilant and better equipped to research, assess and protect against the various elements of security risk.”
Hunter said: “CompTIA’s recent “Trends in Information Security” study found that 52% of human errors account for the root cause of security breaches. This is predominantly down to lack of understanding of new threats with many employees failing to fully grasp security implications. Training is the clear answer for mitigating human error, but companies struggle to understand how to investment in it. Only 54% of companies offer some form of cybersecurity training.”
CompTIA said its Advanced Security Practitioner covers the technical knowledge and skills required to design, and engineer secure solutions across complex enterprise environments.
Hunter added that: “Awareness creates action, which is invaluable for tightening security. However, companies should use policies to create awareness, by routinely implementing, updating and communicating them, rather than wait for it to happen through a cyber security breach.”
