Introducing Google Cloud security training and certification: skills that could save your company millions

Information security is a top priority for global businesses, large and small. Security breaches can cost organizations millions of dollars, cause irreparable brand damage, and result in lost customers. As data and apps move to the cloud, cloud security is increasingly crucial for organizational success.

According to the Breach Level Index, a global database of public data breaches, 3.3 billion data records were compromised worldwide in the first half of 2018, an increase of 72% compared to the same period in 2017. Further, the average cost of a data breach globally increased to $3.86 million, according to the Ponemon Institute’s 2018 Cost of a Data Breach Study.

While these statistics are eye-popping, concern about security in the cloud is no longer hampering cloud adoption for organizations. In fact, a 2017 global survey of more than 500 IT decision-makers found that three-quarters of respondents have become more confident in cloud security. Businesses are now more concerned about the shortage of talent with the right skills to manage cloud technology, make sure the right security controls are in place, manage cloud-based access, and ensure data protection.

The cost and stakes of a security breach are too high, and organizations are realizing they need a skilled team able to handle the ever-increasing workload. A recent CIO.com article, “The top 4 IT security hiring priorities and in-demand skills for 2019,” said that “when it comes to cloud security hiring, the most in-demand role for 2019 is the Cloud Security Engineer.”

To address these current and future needs, we recently launched the Security in GCP specialization, our latest on-demand training course. It introduces learners to Google’s approach to security in the cloud and how to deploy and manage the components of a secure GCP solution. With focus areas such as Cloud Identity, security keys, Cloud IAM, Google Virtual Private Cloud firewalls, Google Cloud load balancing, and many more, participants will learn about securing Google Cloud deployments as well as mitigating many of the vulnerabilities, attacks, and risks mentioned above in a GCP-based infrastructure. These include distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, phishing, and data exfiltration threats involving content classification and use.

While this new training is a broad study of security controls and techniques on GCP, it provides a good framework for a job role that is becoming more important to organizations, the Cloud Security Engineer. To offer organizations a way to benchmark and measure the proficiency of their team’s Google Cloud security skills, we’ve also recently completed the beta version of the Professional Cloud Security Engineer. This certification, which will be available to the public at Next ‘19, validates an individual's aptitude for security best practices and industry security requirements while demonstrating an ability to design, develop, and manage a secure infrastructure that uses Google security technologies.

At a time when many businesses are more vulnerable to cyber attacks, developing cloud security skills with this new training and certification can bring you greater confidence that your data is in safe hands.

To learn more about this new training and certification, join our webinar on March 29 at 9:45am PST.