Cybersecurity, PDUs and LinkedIn Training

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and a happy New Year 2025.  During the holiday season, I had to get fourteen professional development units (PDUs) to maintain my Project Management Professional (PMP) certification by mid-January 2025.  I had my PMP since mid-January 2013.  

The next big question I had was where to get my PDUs and what course I should invest in to earn 14 PDUs.  I decided to go with the LinkedIn Training service because I have been impressed by their improvements in IT learning.  

After watching this video called Satya Nadella On Evolution Of SaaS via Devan Patel's LinkedIn Post

I realized that the world of business applications will be significantly impacted.  Business applications as we know them may not exist in the next five to ten years.  However, I envision cybersecurity staying around and evolving.  Therefore, I took the following cybersecurity classes, which helped me earn my 14 PDUs and learn more about cybersecurity.  I was impressed with the content.  I took the following Cybersecurity classes on LinkedIn Training:

• The Future of Work and Cybersecurity on the Metaverse: 0.75 PDU
• Building and Auditing a Cybersecurity Program: 1.75 PDUs
• Cybersecurity Foundations: Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC): 1.00 PDU
• Artificial Intelligence for Cybersecurity: 1.50 PDUs
• Cybersecurity Awareness: Cybersecurity Terminology: 1:00 PDU
• Cybersecurity Awareness: Protect Your Privacy: 1.25 PDUs
• Building an Application Security Program: 1.50 PDUs
• Building a Cybersecurity Awareness Program: 1.25 PDUs
• Emotional Intelligence for Cybersecurity Professionals: 0.50 PDU
• Insider Threat Risk Management: 0.50 PDU
• Cybersecurity Awareness: Cloud Security: 0.50 PDU
• Cybersecurity Awareness: Phishing Attacks: 1.00 PDU
• Leveraging AI for Governance, Risk, and Compliance: 0.25 PDU
• The OWASP Top 10 for Large Language Model (LLM) Applications: An Overview: 0.75 PDU

That totaled to 13.50 PDUs.  I took the following acquisition classes on LinkedIn Training:

• Outsourcing Management: 0.50 PDU

Overall, I enjoyed all of the courses, and here are my favorites from the list:

• Cybersecurity Awareness: Protect Your Privacy - It provides practical information on how we can protect our privacy online.
• The Future of Work and Cybersecurity on the Metaverse provides insight into how people are addressing cybersecurity in new technologies.
• Artificial Intelligence for Cybersecurity - It does a good job of defining some of the threats in the AI space.
• The OWASP Top 10 for Large Language Model (LLM) Applications: An Overview - It's an overview course that provides insights into the security vulnerabilities of LLM technologies.

I am fortunate to have access to the LinkedIn Training service via my employer and my county library system.  I recommend you check with your county library system to get access to LinkedIn Training since it is an excellent resource if you want to get credits for your professional development to maintain your respective certificates or develop a learning culture with your team.   

Thank you for the 2010s and looking forward to the 2020s.

Happy New Year!!!  As we look forward to the new decade,  we should reflect on the past decade.  

Content-driven services
A lot happened in the 2010s,  Netflix, Amazon Prime, ESPN 3 made streaming content "cool."  I went this route because my DVDs were getting scratched, and I was not happy with my cable service.  Overall I saved money, and I was pleased with its flexibility. I could watch content on my handheld devices.  

Prediction for the 2020s:  

• I envision these types of streams will continue to grow, and the cable TV will eventually disappear.  Folks will pay for recorded and live content rather than specific tv channels.  I would rather directly pay the NBA, NFL, MLB, and NHL rather than go through ESPN and FOX sports.  
• I envision broker companies that will focus on aligning users, content providers, and marketing companies.  The broker companies will develop user profiles based on patterns.  They will use  AI and machine learning to build and improve user profiles.  These profiles will then leveraged to provided target adds.  Amazon is already taking steps to go this route via Amazon Channels[1].  

Technical Debt

Currently, Chief Information Officers (CIO) are struggling with aging infrastructure and the lack of funds to upgrade the infrastructure, which includes network infrastructure, databases, applications, and other IT-related components.  Hackernoon.com does a great job of defining Technical Debt[2], and Technical Debt is one of the significant causes of cybersecurity vulnerabilities.

Prediction for the 2020s:  

• Companies will be forced to address this problem in the 2020s because of security vulnerabilities that be in exposed in the old infrastructure.
• I envision start-up companies that will specialize in upgrading infrastructure, which includes moving digital assets (e.g., applications, data, and others) to the cloud. These companies will bring processes like DevSecOps[3] and the associated tools to the project.
• These companies will need to provide a holistic approach in assessing the issues, developing a strategy, and executing the plan. 

Leverage platform services

In the 2010s,  companies recognized that they need more enterprise IT services. Email isn't the only enterprise service. Services like Identity and Access Management (IAM) services, enterprise search,  document management, and others need to be considered as well. Companies bought the infrastructure and hired the staff to develop the service and maintain it.  Unfortunately, a document management SME doesn't have the bandwidth to understand the rapidly evolving cybersecurity attacks.  This leaves the businesses behind the eight-ball when it comes to sustaining an enterprise service and be vigilant of cyber threats.

Prediction for the 2020s:  

• Large vendors like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and others will offer cloud-based enterprise services.  These services will have simple and clean interfaces.  By having a clean and straightforward interface,  the potential targets for a cyber attack are reduced. The current set of examples of cloud-based enterprise services are the Google Identity Platform [4], Tableau Online [5], and others. 
• I envision IT groups focus on training their staff on how to integrate their business applications with their enterprise services.  

CXO roles

Currently, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) is the chief IT officer in any business organization.  Typically the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and the Chief Data Officer (CDO) report to the CIO.  I envision these roles will change in the future.

Prediction for the 2020s:

• Due to the continuous threat of cyber attacks, the role of the CISO will be elevated in the business organization.  The CISO will be equivalent to the CIO.  
• The job of the CDO will continue to be a tough one[6].  The CDO role will not be funded well and may not have a lot of authority.  The CDO will need to please two masters, the CDO and CISO.
• The CDO role will follow a similar pattern to the Gartner Hype Cycle [7], where the hype will go down because the CDO role is not an operations role.  The CDO will be on the same level as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) or lower.
• The Cloud Architect will be elevated to the C-Suite due to the complexity of the cloud and the cybersecurity threats. On December 30th, 2019, The Wallstreet Journal published an article, Ghosts in the Clouds: Inside China’s Major Corporate Hack[8], which discusses how the Chinese hackers went in through the cloud providers.

NOTE: Image for this blog post is located at https://pixabay.com/illustrations/new-year-s-day-2020-new-year-s-eve-4722431/.

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[1] Casey, H., and Reisinger, C. (2019, May 13). What Is Amazon Channels and Is it Worth It? Tom's Guide. Retrieved from https://www.tomsguide.com/us/amazon-channels-faq,review-4125.html.
[2] Hackernoon.com. (2018, Jan. 25). There are 3 main types of technical debt. Here’s how to manage them. Retrieved from https://hackernoon.com/there-are-3-main-types-of-technical-debt-heres-how-to-manage-them-4a3328a4c50c.
[3] RedHat, Inc., (n.d.). What is DevSecOps?  Retrieved from https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/devops/what-is-devsecops.
[4] Google, LLC (n.d.). Google Identity Platform. Retrieved from https://developers.google.com/identity
[5] Tableau, LLC (n.d.). Tableau Online. Retrieved from https://www.tableau.com/products/cloud-bi.
[6] Bennett, Jo. (2016, Apr. 11). How chief data officers can tackle formidable roadblocks, including people, culture, and internal resistance. Smarter With Gartner. Gartner, Inc.  Retrieved from https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/half-of-cdos-succeed/.
[7] Gartner, Inc. (n.d.). Gartner Hype Cycle.  Retrieved from https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cycle.
[8] The Wallstreet Journal (2019, Dec. 30). Ghosts in the Clouds: Inside China’s Major Corporate Hack. Retrieved from https://www.wsj.com/articles/ghosts-in-the-clouds-inside-chinas-major-corporate-hack-11577729061.

"Dear Santa" letter from a vigilant kid

Dear Santa,

I cannot send you my Christmas letter because the letter will have a lot of my personal data aka personally identifiable information (PII) data. Due to privacy laws and potential stalkers, my parents forbade me to send you a letter or an email. With the various cybersecurity issues, I am not sure if my email will end up in the wrong hands and my daddy, mommy, brother, sister and I may get socially engineered and phished.

Since I still believe in you, here is a compromise. I will share my Amazon wish list and you can use it to send me toys. It needs to be magically because my parents forbade me to share my address with you. I noticed that now Amazon recommends items that I can add to my Amazon wish list. I wonder if Amazon is learning my behavior on Amazon.com. Doesn't that compromise my privacy? Mommy and Daddy tell me privacy laws are here to protect me but I am not sure if websites like Amazon.com, Google.com, Yahoo.com should use my data to make money.

Nevertheless, please send me your email address and I will share my Amazon wish list.

Merry Christmas Santa,

Your Friend

P.S.  My parents forbade me to share my name with you.

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NOTE: I used the picture from https://spaceshipsandlaserbeams.com/20-free-printable-letters-to-santa/.