Month: November 2012

Skills gap in IT security

The article tries to explain why companies have trouble hiring security pros. Some good items in there, but I think it misses the larger point. Too many companies simply don’t understand what they need and treat security as a check box that they mark off on some form. They believe that “security” consists of creation of myriads of policies, procedures and documents for every eventuality. Doubtless, that’s a part of it, but it has to start with evaluating risks, threats and having a proper mindset.

This reminds me of a security position that I once interviewed for. One interviewer really wanted to know the specific number of Active Directory Organizational Units (OUs) I have worked with. That is akin to asking a prospective sysadmin how many files he has worked with. The number is arbitrary and absolutely irrelevant to underlying complexity, nesting, policies, etc.  At the time, they told me that they’ve been trying to fill the position for more than 6 months…..Somehow that wasn’t surprising to me…

Technology divide

A couple of articles surfaced in the last few days, which describe the tech operations of Obama and Romney campaigns. It’s hard to put a number on the advantage that Obama had on the tech side, but considering the relatively small margin of victory, it was probably not insignificant.

Narwal (Obama) – http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/when-the-nerds-go-marching-in/265325/?single_page=true

Orca (Romney) – http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/which-consultants-built-romneys-project-orca-none-of-them/

 

I think this is a great example of the advantage that tech can bring to any business, politics or anything else. It’s often hard to quantify in hard numbers and can be especially difficult for people in positions that are further removed from technology, but it works. And not only they had a “devops guy”, I have no doubt they ran their IT aligned with devops principles. If it was good enough for Obama’s campaign, then it’s probably good enough for others as well.