Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK)
September 4, 2010 – 1:17 am“The issues and opportunities of cloud computing gained considerable notice in 2008 within the information security community. It was at a security practitioners’ conference, the ISSA CISO Forum in Las Vegas, November 20, 2008, where the concept of the Cloud Security Alliance was born. Following a presentation of emerging trends by Jim Reavis that included a call for action for securing cloud computing, Reavis and Nils Puhlmann outlined the initial mission and strategy of the Cloud Security Alliance. A series of organizational meetings in early December 2008 that included Reavis, Puhlmann and industry leaders such as Dave Cullinane, Philippe Courtot, Alan Boehme, Izak Mutlu, Jay Chaudhry, Christofer Hoff, Paul Kurtz and Jean Pawluk formalized the founding of the Cloud Security Alliance.”
That’s the introduction on the CSA website. Says it better than if I tried to paraphrase it. I think I first heard about the CSA via posts on Chris Hoff’s blog which I follow.
The first thing the CSA came out with was their “Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing” whitepaper. It takes a whole raft of well established IT security methodology and applies it to the emerging world of Cloud Computing. It’s very good reading, and excellent reference material.
The next big release was the Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge exam. It was announced at the end of July, and the exam made available on the 1st of September. With timezones in Australia ahead of those in the USA, it was late afternoon Sydney when the exam went live. I had a free evening and thought, why not give the test a go. You get two tries for your exam fee.
Well, I passed, which was nice. But the surprise came later when i got an email from the CSA Executive Director, Jim Reavis. It turned out that I was the first in the world to pass and also the fastest to complete the exam during its first day. That gave the ol’ ego a boost. But the voice of reason in the back of my head started to speak up, and bring me back to reality. There are a lot of good people out there. Better than me. There’s lots I still need to learn.
But I think i’ll enjoy this for a bit 🙂