Re: Fwd: Re: Security Expert Certificates

[Peter Wood <peterw () firstbase co uk>]

Hi

>Aaaww c'mon, I thought it was pretty clear I wasn't *that* serious. The
>point is I think you're probably not a good forensics engineer without
>knowing how to take unknown stuff apart, which requires some assembly skills
>you'd also need for exploit construction.

Fair comment. You're right.

>On a similar note, I'm tired of the approach of IDS being some sort of
>automated alerting tool which just rings a bell when something bad happens.
>IDS are expert tools and will always be, and you won't be able to verify and
>make any substantial comments on what happened if you don't know how an
>exploit works.

Yeah. I absolutely agree with this. In fact IDS as a waste of space is one 
of my hobby horses.

>I totally agree on the target audience bit, of course, with regards to the
>actual contents of the paper. Only thing is I believe we've all had our
>share of people who think they can ignore the backgrounds of technology
>(while discussing technical issues) since they have such an excellent view
>of the "big picture". Maybe I'm just a frustrated security consultant, but I
>see that all the time, and those people are fairly often the ones who also
>flunk big time when it comes to, erm, higher-level securtiy questions.

True.

>Of course you need to convince management and the like. However, I think
>knowing what you're talking about, even if you abstract it so Mr Suit will
>grok it, surely helps the cause. I just don't think anybody needs another
>Gartner group report on either IDS or forensics.

Okay, that's spot on too.

>> PS No CISSP yet but 35 years as an engineer and a techie so far ;-)
>
>I'm actually planning on getting it now, for very pragmatic reasons - I'm
>getting divorced and have to pay alimentation...

Oooh, I sympathise with that too. Expensive and unpleasant.

>Cheers, really, really, no offense intended.

.... and none taken I assure you. I talked to a chum of mine who's a 
recruitment specialist yesterday and he says CISSP is losing respect in UK 
as it's seen as "a mile wide and an inch deep".

Thanks for such a thoughtful reply. I apologise if I sounded upset in my 
initial response - I really wasn't.

cheers
Pete

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