IT Audit Professionals: The New Warfighter for National Security
Today I attended a live IT webinar led by speaker Rodney Newton, a Philadelphia native and an IT professional with over 20 years of experience in IT auditing, Cyber Security and Data Protection. Mr. Newton spoke about how prevalent cybersecurity threats are now in the modern age of technology due to the mass adoption of smart phones and personal computers. He mentioned how it can effect not only individuals but businesses large and small as well as large institutions like the US government. One interesting statistic mentioned was that 1 in 20 organizations in the US fell victim to attempted ransomware attacks in the last year, I found this alarming because I am sure that number will increase as cyber criminals continue to evolve their crimes over time. Hopefully through webinars like this one, that spread awareness about cybersecurity threats, the overall impact of cyber crimes can be reduced due to more people being educated about the risks. Mr. Newton taught us about how the Department of Defense (DoD) is at high risk of cyber attacks. This is for many reasons not limited to but including data breaches, espionage, weapon systems vulnerabilities (drones specifically, and supply chain risks as well. I learned a lot today about how the government has a large necessity for cyber security professionals and this awareness that I gained today inspires me to become involved in cybersecurity, because it is an industry that is super important and will be around forever due to the modern age of technology and the fact that us as humans will never revert to a computerless society.