Today’s IT person needs to wear many hats to be a relevant
and hirable. Long gone are the days of
only needing to be sufficient in a few areas in the IT industry. Ten years ago this was the normal path to a
solid career in IT but with the huge growth of technology this is no longer the
case.
Long gone are the days of having on certification and being
able to land a primo job. Today a person
needs to be a “Jack of all trades” and a master of a few. IT security can require the person to have
knowledge with man iOS systems, devices and software. The system may be local
on site or housed hundreds of thousands miles away, on a virtual machine in the
cloud or an actual machine.
With the use of mobile devices this opens another door of vulnerabilities. The average mobile device user has no clue
the security risks involved with their devices.
One common mistake is the device is not password protected or use a weak
password that is easily guessed. If an
employee uses their mobile device for work email or other applications and loses
the device this could cause a major security risk. There’s also the risk of using unprotected
(encrypted) Wi-Fi. An IT technician
needs to have a good grasp on mobile devices and know how to configure it
keeping in mind someone will be walking around with this device and could
easily loose it or it could be stolen.
Knowing how to secure a virtual machine on the cloud is another area IT
security people need to know and understand.
It is the security technician that is the first line of defense keeping
a network secure. Cloud storage is
another security risk and knowing how to secure it is becoming more common for
companies big and small.
A well rounded IT person can take care of an array of
equipment, to include printers, iOS, RFID technology, scanners, mobile devices,
servers, firewalls etc. It’s no longer a
singular career. Having industry
certifications can be the difference in landing a job or not. It’s becoming more common for IT employees to
hold multiple certificates with or without a 4-year college degree. All certificates are not created equal
either. Some
professional certifications require that you study hard and pass a test, others
require that you have years of experience in a specific field before you can
even apply to be considered. Before you decide maybe getting a certification is
your ticket to a career jump or a promotion, you need to determine whether or
not the types of certifications that will get you ahead in your field are the
ones that require skills, experience, or just a few classes.
The world of
technology moves at the speed of light which requires IT personnel to learn and
change with it. In the field of IT its
common to learn something new every day and apply it along with something you
learned years ago.
