In San Francisco for a Few Days

Over the next few days, I'm in San Francisco to serve as a panelist on a workshop exploring professionalism in the cyber-security workforce. The workshop is sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and has posed a number of thoughtful questions regarding how professionalism relates to the security workforce, the current nature of the cyber-security workforce and where we need to be in the future. The workshop should foster valuable conversations as participants range from federal, state and local government; universities; and large commercial technology firms.

For those unfamiliar with the National Academy of Sciences, it's congressional charter was adopted by President Lincoln in 1863. The charge of the Academy was and continues today to "investigate, examine, experiment and report upon any subject of science." One of the early areas examined by the Academy focused on ironclad military ships.

While few debate the need for a well-trained cyber-security workforce with strong experience levels. professionalism seems to convey some type of skill, knowledge and/or expertise level and includes some type of continuing education to maintain one's expertise. Questions include:

• what does professionalism mean to cyber-security?
• what are the features of a program that fosters cyber-security professionalism and is this needed?
• how do cyber-security roles map against existing IT security functions and related certifications?
• how should the need for professionalism deal with a wide variety of security functions, some held by individuals for which cyber-security is only a portion of their responsibilities?
• what incentives should exist for program participation?
• does such a program diminish the need for everyone to have a cyber-security role, from general end-users to system administrators to a central security team.

After the workshop, I'll walk over to the RSA Security Conference Expo floor to check on new and improving security products and vendors and refresh acquaintances with other conference registrants and vendor representatives.  It's a beautiful day to be in San Francisco.

©2013, R. Ono

©2013, R. Ono

©2013, R. Ono

©2013, R. Ono

On a side note, last night I joined a colleague for a dinner at Bouche, on Post Street. The restaurant is a short walk from Union Square.This is a small intimate California-French restaurant specializes in seasonal offerings. There are only 16 bar seats and 20 table seats (reservations are advised). Between the two of us, we ordered the smoked salmon with poached egg, potato soup with leek foam and bacon and honey glazed duck breast slices, with chestnuts and braised red cabbage. The dinner was very good and service was not rushed.