EP 61: Skills-based Certification and Training with John Strand

https://www.yourcyberpath.com/61

In this episode, we talked with John Strand (Founder of Black Hills Information Security and Antisyphon InfoSec Training) about the importance of skills-based certification and training. John’s goal is the provide world-class skills-based training to everyone at an affordable price using a unique pay-what-you-can model.

Skills-based certification is different from traditional certifications in that they do not use multiple-choice exams to test your knowledge of the material and instead require candidates to prove their knowledge through real-world, work-related exercises. These skill-based certification courses are short in duration and extremely hands-on in nature.

During this discussion, we explain the differences between ANSI-based certifications and non-ANSI certifications. The importance of certifications in general to the hiring managers and human resources teams is also discussed because large organizations rely on these ANSI-based certifications. Smaller organizations, though, like Black Hills Information Security who has under 100 employees, don’t necessarily rely on certifications to find qualified candidates.

Cyber deception was also discussed, which is a way of setting up honey tokens in your domain servers to identify hackers, attackers, and penetration testers when they try to break into your system. John provides three quick tips to implement cyber deception in your network today!

What You’ll Learn

·     The importance of skills-based certifications

·     The difference between ANSI and non-ANSI certifications

·     How to use honeytokens and canary tokens to detect an attacker quickly

Relevant Websites For This Episode

·     Black Hills Information Security (https://www.blackhillsinfosec.com)

·     Antisyphon Training (https://www.antisyphontraining.com)

·     Canary Tokens (https://canarytokens.org)

·     Try Hack Me (https://tryhackme.com)

·     Hack the Box (https://www.hackthebox.com)

·     Holiday Hack Challenges (https://www.holidayhackchallenge.com)