If you are heavily involved with your company’s network – and let’s face it, there are few jobs today that don’t touch the company’s network at least at some point – you’ll know how vulnerable many companies are when it comes to security threats. Security threats are on the rise exponentially: companies that saw only occasional attacks a few years ago are now seeing them almost daily, which has added an enormous burden to most organization’s IT departments.

WatchGuard Technologies (News - Alert), in its annual security predictions, warns that 2013 is likely to be a year during which security stakes reach new heights and attacks become more frequent and more damaging, as many organizations suffer attacks before taking measures to protect themselves, according to IT Wire.

“While the security industry is predicted to focus on ‘strike back’ measures, WatchGuard predicts these actions will be ineffective and ultimately unviable for most organizations," said WatchGuard’s director of Security Strategy, Corey Nachreiner.

Experts say the major threats of 2013 will involve mobile apps, hackers emulating the techniques of “hacktivist” group Anonymous but for less socially conscious reasons, Windows 8 and HTML5.

It’s safe to say that most organizations simply aren’t equipped to deal with these threats, let alone “strike back.” While much of the onus for preventing the increase in threats will be on government legislation, a lot of it will fall onto organizations themselves to raise awareness among employees to better fight security breaches and attacks.

The RCCSP Professional Education Alliance, which offers nationwide classroom training programs for the contact center industry's portfolio of professional certifications, has devised a hands-on, five-day network training course for cybersecurity essentials. Participants in the course will learn about the challenges of designing a secure network, threats to which an organization's system is exposed, and ways to protect it. The course will employ lectures and hands-on exercises during which participants will work with live viruses, including botnets, worms, and Trojans to gain a thorough understanding of Internet security basics and best practices. Attendees will review standard cybersecurity terminology, compliance requirements, mitigate controls and work with live viruses including botnets, worms, and Trojans in a lab environment.

The seminar will also include information on how current cyber threats and cybersecurity site references, government-mandated directives and compliance requirements, cyber roles required to successfully design secure systems, enterprise policy requirements, methods used by hackers and more. For more information or to register, visit the RCCSP’s website.

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