In the intensely competitive environment, startups and agile firms are overturning incumbents with digital business models, products, and services. In the 'Digital Era', we are observing the exponential growth in the data over internet. Simultaneously, organizations are facing mounting challenges from cybercrime, cyber-espionage, insider threats, and advanced persistent threats(APT).

As per the Verizon 2015 Data Breach Investigation Report (DBIR), 60 percent of businesses being breached happened within minutes or less and half of these incidents took anywhere from months to even years before being uncovered. We safely can derive inference that breaches tend to happen very quickly and on average take a long time to be detected by the targeted organization. These organizations can be divide into two types: 1) those who have been hacked, and 2) those who don’t yet know that they have been hacked.

Even after the tremendous efforts by the IT security vendors, the below questions still exist:

1. Aren’t governments and big businesses investing significant amounts of money already into developing countermeasures to cyberattacks?

2. Why are existing security products unable to stop these threats?

Attackers & Defenders have both become highly sophisticated.

Just like IT security solution providers, attackers also have labs for researching products. Hackers test various exploits against the new product until one succeeds, and then either sell the exploit on underground markets, weaponize it for less-skilled attackers, or use it for some other malicious purpose.

Anxiety Is Growing on Boards and in the C-Suite

Most C-suite leaders are still thinking about 'stopping threats' when they could be thinking about the tangible growth that 'cybersecurity excellence' makes possible. Cybersecurity weakness is a “silent disease” that impedes firms’ ability to innovate at precisely the time they can least afford it—when they are being drawn into the Digital Vortex, where digitization, disruption, and exponential changes are the “new normal.” Many companies suffer from this malady, but few are aware that they have it. Left unattended, cybersecurity weakness can be fatal in the Digital Vortex.

Below-par cybersecurity leaves companies in the worst possible competitive position: not innovating fast enough to compete, yet not safe enough from cyberattack despite delaying digital innovations.

In Search of Cybersecurity Excellence

Firms that turn cybersecurity excellence into true competitive advantage can innovate faster and more fully pursue the sort of digital transformation that allows them to respond nimbly to rapidly changing markets. This agility makes them more effective and drives enhanced financial performance.

Cybersecurity excellence also gives firms the opportunity to differentiate their brands by conveying a strong perception of customer trust and this is one of the many reasons organizations develop a Security Operation Center (SOC). They are establishing SOC teams of security professionals who can secure information systems through effective monitoring, detecting, investigating, analyzing, and responding to security events, thus protecting systems from cybersecurity risks, threats, and vulnerabilities.

Observing the demand for a newly-skilled cybersecurity professional, Cisco is introducing a new CCNA, i.e. CCNA Cyber Ops.

New CCNA Cyber Ops

The new CCNA Cyber Ops certification would prepare candidates to begin a career working with associate-level cybersecurity analysts within security operations centers offered by Cisco to its clients. They will learn how to detect and respond to security threats using the latest technology, as such jobs require the knowledge of basic cybersecurity and principles.

Exam 210-250 Understanding Cisco Cybersecurity Fundamentals - SECFND v1.0
Exam 210-255 Implementing Cisco Cybersecurity Operations - SECOPS v1.0

READ MORE: http://luminisindia.com/it-networking-blog/154-new-ccna-cyber-ops-are-you-ready-for-security-analysis

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