Women Entrepreneurs

What moves us, empowers us and engages us helps us develop our personal brand, but also weaves its way through the lives of those around us, motivating others and inspiring them to grow. That was resounding message at The Power of Your Story, an event featuring Millennial women who are changing the world by sharing their stories and building tech businesses and brands.

Held on July 24, CompTIA’s Canadian Business Technology Community hosted the event with partner Benchmark at Toronto’s Verity Club, a women’s club in downtown Toronto. While listening to the panelists, you could hear murmurs of amazement, words of encouragement and see nods of agreement from the more than 100 women in attendance who are all looking to help shape the future of the tech industry to ensure women are heard and represented. In addition to sharing their stories, the panelists also shared important advice for anyone building a personal brand or a business. Here’s what they had to say.
Clear the Noise

Riya Karumanchi is the 15-year-old founder and CEO of SmartCane, a company focused on revolutionizing mobility for the visually impaired using a proprietary computer vision technology that enables real-time object detection functionalities to describe a user’s surrounding environment. Being passionate about coding led her to realize that, while change is happening all over the world, it is leaving behind many communities.

When asked how she manages to balance attending high school and running a business, she shared the advice she received from her mentor: Make a table. On the left side, make a list of everything that’s taking up your time; on the other side, write down where do you want to go in life. Cross out everything on the left that isn’t getting you to where you are going.
More Info: jobs that require comptia a+ certification

Cloud Computing and Digital Transformation

Do you have an interest in cloud computing? Are you wondering how it plays into digital transformation? Then you have come to the right cyberplace. Following is a preview of DuWayne Harrison’s ChannelCon presentation, The Role of Cloud Computing in Digital Transformation. Whether you attend in person or virtually, you’ll want to be sure to check it out.

What does digital transformation mean? I define digital transformation as the combined use of technical solutions, such as cloud computing and blockchain, to modernize existing processes, procedures and overall strategy for an organization and enable rapid modification.

There are several meanings depending on who you ask, and my definition does not make the others wrong. But using my definition will anchor our discussion with the same understanding, ensuring a fruitful discussion. Cloud computing plays an integral role in a digital transformation strategy, and you cannot have one without the other. There are many technologies that cloud computing enables – smart cities, smart buildings and blockchain, for example.
When moving to the cloud, several things need to change within an organization to completely reap the benefits of cloud computing. Several technology vendors have written operations guides and/or provided guidance on how an organization should change its operations procedures and processes within a cloud computing world.
More Info: computech a+ certification

IT Certifications: Performance

Technology is in nearly every workplace today. From the biggest multinational enterprise to the smallest of small businesses, business is conducted via connecting to networks day in and day out. So, while the specific skills needed are always evolving with technology, there’s a constant need for skilled staff that understands how IT infrastructure functions, how to secure it and how to maintain it.

In a world where nearly everyone is an end user, the question arises of how valuable it is for IT pros to not only earn vendor-neutral IT certifications, but also keep them current. A recent study by IDC found that it’s very valuable for those who are new to IT, those who have taught themselves, those who have done apprenticeships and even those who have worked in IT for a number of years.

The IDC study, Impact of Certifications and Training on Career Milestones, illustrates how CompTIA appears to improve the lives of IT certification holders along three points of evaluation:
Performance
Professional Influence
Promotion potential

Digging deep into what each of these means gives us a feel for a cycle of career improvement, supported by CompTIA, as certified IT pros advance through their careers.
More Info: a+ certification jobs

Treat Cybersecurity for What it Is

Security isn’t part of technology anymore, it’s part of business. That’s a concept that still eludes many businesses—which spells opportunity for solution providers.

Businesses are changing the way they think of security, but they’re not necessarily investing properly, according to CompTIA research analysts Carolyn April and Seth Robinson, who talk about the state of security and preview CompTIA’s upcoming cybersecurity research report on the latest Volley podcast available here.
Security Moves from the Data Center to the Boardroom

Security is moving more into lines of business and more business heads are purchasing security, Robinson said.

“Technology is becoming more ingrained in business operations and security is becoming really critical to business operations. A lot of companies had security as part of the function of their overall IT team, but we're seeing it now pull out more and more into [into business],” he said. “The more I've looked at security over the past few years, the more I almost begin to think of it the same way that I would think of accounting or legal. You have to have it and you have to have some pretty deep knowledge and specialization around it. And I think that that's kind of the theme behind this new security report.”

Businesses have been stagnant the last few years regarding their security, but many are starting to take a more modern approach—understanding that it’s not just the technology and it’s not enough to just have a secure perimeter anymore.
More Info: comptia a+ certified jobs

Business Tips to Survive

Experiencing a natural disaster—or any emergency—can be a nerve-wracking experience. Guiding a business through that situation is even more stressful. Not only do you have to worry about your customers, you have to think about your employees, your offices, equipment, and much more.

It can be overwhelming, but if you take the proper precautions, plan out a strategy, and rely on anything and everything in your power, you can not only survive, but thrive.

In this first part of a three-part series, we’ll examine advice from solution providers who successfully led businesses through hurricanes, tornados, flooding and other disasters. This blog focuses on advice on how to manage employees through a disaster. Part 2 will explore how to manage customers. Part 3 will examine lessons the solution providers learned going through their trauma.

And make no mistake—disastrous situations are traumatic to virtually everyone involved. They impact everyone differently, but through strong leadership, community support and human resolve, businesses—and lives—will come out on top, the solution providers said.

Here are five things solution providers said can help when it comes to managing employees through a disaster:You also need to consider what types of applications you’ll be using and how they’ll be handled by the cloud service provider. For example, moving from an off-the-shelf application like Microsoft Office, to Office 365 may make sense. The IT administrator will compare the advantages of keeping desktop licenses versus paying annual fees for the cloud-based version.
More Info: what job can i get with a comptia a+

How Cybersecurity Analysts Use Threat Intelligence Platforms

Now that I have Yeti installed, let’s take a look at how to use it. Let’s suppose that I worked for a hospital. I could record information about attacks specific to my organization using Yeti. For example, if I was worried about an attacker obtaining a Kerberos Golden Ticket via Mimikatz, then I would start storing information about this particular form of attack. Or if I discovered several attack attempts, I could record the information easily inside of Yeti.

Many organizations are enduring Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. Let’s suppose that I was a cybersecurity professional asked to record DDoS attacks specific to the Memcached service, which is often used to speed up web applications by storing information in memory.

Attackers use poorly configured Memcached services to wage DDoS attacks. So, if I wanted to record information about actual Memcached attacks, I would log on to Yeti, then go to Investigations > Import to upload information.

From here, I can edit the information I wish to import. I would only want to include relevant information that helps my fellow workers recover from this specific attack.

For example, I could focus on a specific technique, such as investigating the IP address 188.138.125.254 and its relationship to the Cloudflare organization. I might find that it’s completely non-threatening and standard. Or, I might decide it’s an indicator of attack. This is an example of the types of decisions made by cybersecurity analysts.

Based on this information, I could then create links from one system to another to uncover useful information about the source of the attack. Figure 6 below shows how I attempted to link several sites to try and identify a specific cause of an attack. It’s a pretty messy map, but cybersecurity professionals are expected to sift through and sort messy information so that it’s more useful.
More Info: comptia jobs

Time to Update Your IT Skills

Being a successful IT pro means keeping pace with everything that changes and evolves so you can make the right decisions for your organization. If you’ve ever been at a loss for words when asked to compare two new technologies or your stomach has dropped when seeing the names of tools you’re unfamiliar with, it may be time to update your IT skill set. The good news is that there are a number of ways to keep your finger on the pulse of all things tech.
Signs Your IT Skills May Need a Refresh

If you can relate to any of the following, it may be time to give your IT skills some TLC:
Coworkers who have less seniority and experience than you are now your supervisors.
You don’t feel confident at work.
If you are a private contractor, you’re being passed over for the cool jobs you want most.
You aren’t getting the endorsements on LinkedIn you need.
You haven’t gotten a promotion in years despite wanting one.
You often find yourself asking your coworkers for help.
Your coworkers rarely ask you for help.

Woods, who mentors a lot of tech hopefuls, said the question he hears most often related to IT jobs is, “Do I have to get a degree or can I go to a tech school or get a certification to get a good job?” He points people to certifications first. “Get the CompTIA A+, Network+ and Security+ as the baseline and then move from there,” is his advice.

“It’s a shift and a mindset change,” Woods said. “There’s nothing wrong with a four-year degree or a two-year degree, but let’s look at certifications as a stepping stone.”

According to a new whitepaper on the Impact of Certifications and Training on Career Milestones, IT professionals who are certified before their first position are 50% more likely to get a promotion within one year of first being hired than people who have never certified and are promoted almost twice as often as noncertified IT professionals.

To address the skills gap in IT, Woods said the whole industry needs to share the message that a four-year degree isn’t required to develop a technology career. “It’s important—very important—that we, all of us in this room, have a vested interested in doing that. It’s going to really do some game-changing things to make this happen.”
More Info: comptia a+ jobs