“There is an increasingly high demand for skilled infosec professionals across Europe and an on-going requirement for current, real-world security training,” said Matt Anderson, director, EMEA, at the SANS Institute, “We noticed a significant increase in students at SANS London last November, with many courses selling out a month or more ahead of the event. As a result of that we added extra training events across Europe through 2013 and we will increase training capacity again across 2014.”
The growing demand for SANS training has been in part been met by a second SANS London event, and by new events in Brussels and Berlin. SANS is currently planning the 2014 schedule, but expects to see more new venues added to the calendar to ensure the full spectrum of SANS training is made available within Europe and the Gulf Region.
In addition, SANS’ dedicated Digital Forensics event returns to Prague from the 6th of October to coincide with the annual European Digital Forensics and Incident Response Summit (DFIR). The extended session also includes a brand-new course to the 2013 roster with ‘FOR526: Windows Memory Forensics In-Depth’ taught by Jess Garcia and Jesse Kornblum. This in-depth course is critical for any serious investigator who wishes to tackle advanced forensic and incident response cases.
Following last year’s sell out, SANS has also opened registration early for SANS London 2013, what it bills as Europe’s largest infosec training event. This year’s full roster of courses – SANS Europe’s largest ever – will be held in the Grand Connaught Rooms in the heart of Covent Garden. The event also includes evening functions, SANS@Night talks and a competitive NetWars tournament. Students registering before October 2nd can also save up to €250 on tuition fees.
In response to the difficulties recruiters face in finding good information security professionals, the SANS Institute also demonstrated its new CyberTalent Assessment service at the recent Microsoft Careers Fair held in London. The Careers Fair, which attracted over 500 guests, was co-organized by the CyberSecurity Challenge, a not-for-profit organization backed by SANS whose aim is to bring more talented people into the cybersecurity profession.
The CyberTalent Assessments are used by organizations globally as a technical skills assessment for job applicants and also as a training needs analysis tool for understanding the cyber skills of existing team members. The assessments help recruitment and HR professionals and recruitment agencies save time, reduce administrative efforts and increase the pool of qualified candidates.