How the economy might hamper security efforts.

As the economy seems to get worse, I've noticed a few trends concerning my clients, and clients of colleagues;

For one, since I sometimes teach penetration testing, I'm exposed to a wide array of security professionals. One thing I've seen a lot of over the last six months is corporations cutting security staff while trying to pump security knowledge into whom ever is left. In previous years, at least half of a 10 student class were individuals dedicated strictly to security in their job roles. Now out of 10 students I'm lucky if 1 or 2 are dedicated strictly to security. I recall when security first became "an issue", there was similar behavior. We'd get database guys, programmers, and network engineers who were told they were in charge of security now, and here's a week long class to prepare you for it. As need for strong security skills grew, we saw the birth of more security specific jobs. Now it seems that economic conditions are almost forcing us to go back to where we once were, at least in a general sense of speaking. This could be an opportunity for us to improve, but it could also create a temporary weakness in the security chain that might have devastating results. Time will tell.

Now, for the good side. Although security staff seems to be being trimmed some, compared to most other areas of technology, we're not being hit nearly as hard. The only thing that frightens me is that many corporations are mistakenly thinking security and compliance are synonymous. Another past mistake we've made.

• Security
• chained exploits.
• hacking
• Keatron Evans
• penetration testing
• security