Stephen Northcutt Offers Advice to Security Pros: Learn Chinese

From the Bank Info Security News Web Site - "Bank Information Security Articles"

Interview on September 14, 2010 - by Upasana Gupta, Contributing Editor

Stephen Northcutt, CEO of SANS Technology Institute, has a piece of advice for up and coming security professionals. "Learn Chinese; you are going to need it." Further, Northcutt advises, "Learn and live by the security axiom: protection is ideal, but detection is a must."

In an exclusive interview on careers in information security, Northcutt shares insights on:

• On how he started his career;
• Opportunities and gaps he sees in our professional training system;
• Advice to today's security practitioners

SANS Technology Institute is a postgraduate level IT Security College, and Northcutt, its CEO, is 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.

Check out the entire interview at the BankInfoSecurity site