The Need for Security Education in the Community

It's been three weeks since my last post. I guess the warm weather and long work days have helped suppress motivation lately. But since that time, some interesting changes have occurred at the National Information Security Group (NAISG). We started 5+ years ago as a Boston-based user group. Since then, we have taken on a national, online role; and then expanded on that to include a handful of US-based chapters which include Connecticut River Valley, New York City, Washington, D.C. and Seattle, Washington.

In addition to this, we also maintain a LinkedIn "group." This group has grown much quicker than expected. (As of today, we have ~1,200 members from around the world.) So three weeks ago, I sent an email blast to all of our LinkedIn members, thanking them for joining the list, encouraging them to visit our Web site and asking them about general interest for user groups in their communities.

As a result of that email, two things happened:

1> I received one email from an upset individual asking why the heck he would want to join yet another security group. After all, he asked, isn't it adequate having ISSA, CIPS and ISACA? "Why did I feel it was necessary to fragment the security community?," he argued.

2> I received a number of other emails from individuals expressing their desire to form chapters, indicating the need to have the groups and the education they provide. In addition, many of these individuals expressed their frustrations with organizations such as ISSA, which charge membership and frequently provide just vendor-focused presentations. (In contrast, NAISG's operations dictate to prospective presenters that the discussions must be issue-focused and not product-focused.)

So, the positive response I received from these many individuals helped me to mentally squash the negative one. And as a result, we have since opened chapters in Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas, Texas; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; London, England and Bangalore, India!

In addition, we have plans for chapters in Chicago, Illinois; Austin, Texas; Jacksonville, Florida; Detroit, Michigan; Red Deer, Alberta, Canada; Athens, Greece; Bucharest, Romania; Delhi, India; Istanbul, Turkey and Oxford, England.

So much for fragmenting the security community!!!!

-TQG