Cybercrime Statistics

In this week's assignments we were tasked with researching and discussing different elements of cybercrime.  In doing so I became aware that the FBI is one of the leading agencies that take on certain cybercrime.  I went to the link shown below and found that they have tons of information and statistics about cybercrime.  This information was compiled by the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, an online resource for people to report cybercrimes.

Annual reports dating all the way back to 2001 are provided at this link.  

http://www.ic3.gov/media/annualreports.aspx 

Work Experience vs. Certifications

I happened to come across a great article that spoke to a lot about what we discussed this week.  There is a fine balance that needs to be met between practical and hands-on work experience and industry-related certifications.  This article discusses both, positives to experience and certifications.
The article is also specific to the Information Security industry, making it even more relavant.

One of the major takeaways I got from this article can be summed up in the following quote.  "...we’ve provided two different perspectives with a long-standing debate between technical work experience versus certifications.  Although the feeling is that most technical hiring managers would prefer a combination of both, if we had to choose one or the other, the general consensus from our IT recruiters is that there is no substitute for experience" (avidtr.com).  

As I stated in other posts this week, I believe, as does the author of this article, that experience cannot be matched.  To also quote every sports coach and school teacher ever, "practice makes perfect".


Follow this Link:

http://www.avidtr.com/Job-Seekers/Industry-Articles/Work-Experience-vs--Certifications---What-Do-Emplo.aspx

I stumbled across and article that discussed the usability and effectiveness of personal firewalls.  The article was appropriately named "Usability and Effectiveness of Personal Firewalls by Computer and Information Science professors Herzog & Shahmehri at Linköping University in Sweden.  There is some interesting information within this article about firewalls.  It describes some of the basics as well as how users can increase the security of their personal devices via a strong firewall.  What else is described is the methodology behind the testing of the products included in the study.  Please follow the link below to the article:

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-0-387-72367-9_4#page-1

Herzog, A., & Shahmehri, N. (2007). Usability and security of personal firewalls. In New Approaches for Security, Privacy and Trust in Complex Environments (pp. 37-48). Springer US.