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Imagine if everyone who uses a computer, tablet, or smartphone knew how to recognize cyberattacks. It’s a pretty ambitious goal, but one that I am committed to. This issue of Logically Speaking focuses on CyberSAFE by CertNexus—a practical course for the technology user that teaches the basics of CyberSAFE behavior. Join Logical Operations and CertNexus in pursuit of the 100% CyberSAFE goal.
Jim Gabalski
VP, Sales and Marketing
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If You Shop Online, You Need CyberSAFE Training
Guest article by Shinesa Cambric, Principal Product Manager, Microsoft
When you hear the term “cybersecurity” what does it make you think of? For most people, it may bring thoughts of someone within an IT department or an image of a hacker in a hoodie, but cybersecurity is really about empowering people with what they need to know and do to stay safe in their daily digital lives, which makes cybersecurity user training critically important.
 Having an understanding of cybersecurity isn’t just for people working in technology jobs. It’s also for those living and interacting with technology - all of us who shop online, stay connected with family and friends through social media, use computers for work, or help our kids learn with the aid of smart devices. And although the consequences of not understanding cybersecurity can apply to anyone, oftentimes the training available does not. Therefore, CyberSAFE training is critically important. It’s essential that companies and institutions invest in cybersecurity education that enables the secure use of technology for and by everyone. CyberSAFE end-user cybersecurity training is relevant and practical in a way that participants can immediately apply what they’ve learned and adopt good digital security habits as part of their lifestyle, without the pressure of learning confusing acronyms or complicated technical concepts. As these habits become core to how an individual operates, the investment that has been made in training will pay dividends, in both professional and personal areas.
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Shinesa Cambric
CCSP, CISSP, CISA,
CISM, CDPSE
Principal Program Manager,
Microsoft
Connect on LinkedIn
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The individual with the ability to recognize a phishing attempt could prevent an attacker from extorting millions of dollars from a business AND similarly protect a family member from an online scam. Someone trained to turn on and use multi-factor authentication can protect the intellectual property of their company AND similarly prevent theft of their own personal digital data. As society becomes increasingly digital, there’s no better time to invest in end-user cybersecurity training than now.
Shinesa Cambric (CCSP, CISSP, CISA, CISM, CDPSE) is a Cloud Security, Compliance, and Identity Architect with strategic expertise in technical design and implementation of security architecture and controls. Her experience includes designing identity management and governance solutions for cloud-based platforms, building insider threat programs, and providing unique subject matter expertise on the intersection of governance, risk, and compliance with IT and application security.
As a Principal Program Manager within Microsoft’s Intelligent Protections team, Shinesa currently focuses on architecting solutions for global organizations to identify, detect, protect, and respond to threats against identity and access.
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The CISO Will Take Your Call!
by Jim Gabalski, VP, Sales and Marketing
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 CISOs are kept awake at night thinking about the next breach and how to prevent it. All of them know that there is one common source of a breach and that is human error, most often from end users who use technology – a computer, laptop, mobile device, network, the Internet, and/or cloud applications – every day as part of doing their jobs.
So, how do you get a CISO to take your call?
Talk to them about affordably and effectively training the general knowledge worker on threat-busting CyberSAFE behavior. Here is a formula for success:
- Know the outline for CertNexus’ CyberSAFE-410 training. Even better, take the course and pass the assessment. Be ready to speak to it.
- Offer to run a trial class with end users from throughout the organization at no cost to the organization.
- Gather the feedback on the training, which you can expect to be very positive, and use it to orchestrate a company-wide rollout funded by the CISO.
- Keep the class runtimes as short as possible – no more than four hours, and less if you can cover the material adequately (my class ran two hours).
- Run larger class sizes to optimize instructor utilization.
- Leverage eLearning or virtual sessions for remote employees.
Take that offer to a CISO, and they will take your call. Remember, you are helping them to address their biggest concern: an expensive and embarrassing breach caused by an undertrained, unsuspecting end user who falls victim to an attack. The cost of training is an extremely small percentage of the cost of a breach…
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Get Them SAFE: CyberSAFE Training Promotion for Only $250
by Jon O'Keefe, Technology Education Jedi
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 According to Fortune Business Insights, the cybersecurity insurance market is growing 25% year over year. Your customers are purchasing cybersecurity insurance and they need to be able to demonstrate proof that their employees have participated in end-user cyber awareness training. CyberSAFE can help you offer your customers an easy-to-digest 1-hour cyber awareness class that comes with a micro-credential and metrics reporting—and it just got easier than ever to execute!
The "Get Them SAFE" promotion gives you everything you need to offer CyberSAFE. For only $250, you'll receive:
- An expert trainer
- Four 1-hour virtual training sessions with an unlimited number of students in each class
- CyberSAFE 410 courseware for each student
- Access to the CyberSAFE micro-credential
This is the best way to get started with our hottest and most important cybersecurity offering. Learn more and take advantage of this offer now.
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Download the CyberSAFE 410 Marketing Kit
by Jim Gabalski, VP, Sales and Marketing
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 CyberSAFE 410 is here! CertNexus has developed several valuable assets to help you start selling CyberSAFE 410. In the CertNexus CyberSAFE 410 marketing kit, you'll find:
- An email template to share with your student network.
- A sales sheet to share with students—with space to add your contact information.
- A video that can be shared on your own site and social media.
- A PowerPoint deck with information you can share with clients.
Download the CertNexus CyberSAFE 410 marketing kit.
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Cyber Liability Insurance and CyberSAFE
by Megan Smith Branch, Chief Operating and Product Officer, CertNexus
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 Recently, we had a customer who experienced a breach and needed a record of their employees’ CyberSAFE credentials. We provided a report indicating that the credentials in question were up to date. I felt the relief when the customer received the report. They explained that their cyber liability policy would only cover expenses from the breach if the client could demonstrate that they had current cybersecurity training. When they took on the cyber policy, training was a part of the policy’s risk assessment, similar to the regulatory requirements that audit if compliance training has taken place.
If you are not convinced yet, take the following scenario into account: In 2015, a banking clerk recognized a misspelling in a transfer request. By recognizing a key identifier of a hack, the clerk launched the defense of an $81 million breach, that if gone undetected could have cost billions. Even though the breach had occurred, it was not the security team that identified it, but an employee trained to identify signs of malicious activity.
While the hope of cybersecurity training is that human errors never occur, this story illustrates how training can provide dual protection for a company. Education is the first layer of protection from human error such as social engineering, and validation is the second layer. Validation is the proof organizations can share with outside entities such as insurance agencies, customers, and investors.
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Latest Product Highlights
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Content Revisions
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Logical Operations revises student and instructor materials based on technical changes, customer feedback, and our own assessment of necessary changes. The revision notes for the most recent updates are below as well as posted on the Content Revisions page. Use this page as a resource to quickly access and view all revision details for any of our recent course updates.
Reminder: When viewing a product on the store, check the Revision Information tab to see the summary description of the most recent revision for that product at any time.
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RAKICT: Powering Egypt’s Workforce with CyberSAFE and Emerging Technology Skills
by Jim Gabalski, VP, Sales and Marketing
 RAKICT was founded in 2016 by Alaa Saafan to provide exceptional training on in-demand skills that support the Information Technology and Communications industries. Based in Egypt, RAKICT starts with researching the skills that companies need most, identifying competency gaps in the workforce, and closing those gaps by providing knowledge and skills through the training programs. “I spent 10 years learning the business of training and how it works operationally,” says Alaa. “I took that knowledge with me and founded RAKICT where I put an emphasis on delivering high-quality training that results in skills and knowledge that students can put to use in their jobs immediately.” That vision and Alaa’s commitment to it has resulted in significant growth for RAKICT over the past six years.
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The RAKICT team at a training event
for their client Egypt Air.
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Cybersecurity quickly rose to the top of the skills-gap list. “Based on our research, we identified that banks and financial institutions in the Middle East really needed cybersecurity training,” says Alaa. “So, we started there. What we learned was that the biggest risk to an institution’s cybersecurity was the general knowledge worker, as most breaches, 70-80%, start with the end-user and a human error.” Alaa refers to the general knowledge worker, the people in an organization that are not IT professionals but use technology every day in their job, as the “first line of defense” when it comes to cybersecurity. In 2019, RAKICT started working with CertNexus to deliver CyberSAFE training which is designed for that specific audience. They translated the content to Arabic which accelerated a training opportunity at Egypt Air. Investing in complimentary training for Egypt Air department heads, RAKICT ran CyberSAFE training sessions resulting in approval for general training across the organization. RAKICT is currently running 5 additional sessions for 400 users and expects to train more than 5,000 additional Egypt Air employees. They also plan to use this approach with other organizations in Egypt.
Alaa is extremely focused on talent retention and sees training as critical to retaining great employees in Egypt. Alaa plans to build on RAKICT’s emerging technology training success to offer even more in-demand skills training. “We will build on CyberSAFE and offer cybersecurity training for IT professionals. Our research shows major gaps in Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and Internet of Things skills. So, we plan to add those training offerings to our portfolio,” says Alaa. “We want people to have the skills necessary to support the growth of the technical skills in Egypt and retain as many people here as possible.” As digital transformation continues to accelerate in Egypt, more people with Emerging Tech skills will be in demand, and RAKICT is committed to creating a strong and capable talent pool.
RAKICT is committed to their vision and recently supported a United Nations-funded program to bring technology training to villages in Egypt where access to these types of programs was nonexistent. With a “knowledge will lead to a better life” approach, the RAKICT program gave young people a start with technology and inspired dreams. “The best moment was when a young girl broke into a large smile when she clicked and opened a window on her screen,” said Alaa, “That was priceless, as I knew her life was changed forever.”
Alaa has a favorite quote in Arabic that translates to, “If you treat people well and give them training and skills, they will stay.” Great words to live by.
To learn more about RAKICT, visit their website: https://www.rakict.com/
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Get Them SAFE: How to Capitalize on the Explosion of Cybersecurity Insurance
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Most cybersecurity insurance requires organizations to perform and have proof of end-user awareness training. That means millions of dollars in training opportunity for you. Join Jon O'Keefe, Technology Education Jedi, on May 10 to learn about why the cybersecurity insurance requirement is important for your training business and how you can capitalize on it with CyberSAFE training.
He'll cover:
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The "what": Cybersecurity insurance is on the rise.
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The "so what?": Organizations want to be protected, but they often overlook their most targeted assets.
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The "now what?": Help your clients with our "Get Them SAFE" offer and don't miss out on millions of dollars of training.
Register for the Tech Talk on May 10 now.
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April 2022 Instructor Excellence Award: Dennis Thibodeaux
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Dennis Thibodeaux
Security Fraud Examiner,
Security Specialist, and
Technical Educator
at New Horizons
Connect on LinkedIn |
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Dennis Thibodeaux is a Certified Fraud Examiner, security specialist, and award-winning technical educator. Dennis began teaching at New Horizons Computer Learning Centers in 2010 and during that time he has taught almost 500 weeks of cybersecurity certification exam prep classes for New Horizons Learning Group. His experience as an instructor and IT professional goes back more than 20 years and his professional background includes extensive experience as a practitioner in information security, business continuity, incident response, and related areas.
Dennis has taught college students Information Technology, Criminal Justice, and Paralegal Studies degree programs. He has instructed employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Princeton University, Defense Language Institute, IBM, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the United Nations, NASA, all branches of the U.S. military, and hundreds of other security-minded organizations in the private and public sectors. He is a member of several professional societies including ISACA, ASIS International, and the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. Dennis is a world-renowned instructor and has consistently ranked among the top New Horizons instructors, receiving the prestigious annual New Horizons “Worldwide Excellence in Training Award” three times!
Dennis was working as an enterprise IT consultant to America’s biggest bank when he earned the Microsoft Certified Trainer credential in 1999, at the suggestion of an executive who liked the way he conducted employee training sessions. At the time, Dennis had no intention of making a career in technical training, but opportunity knocked when he was laid off in early 2000. “I answered a help wanted ad from a training company seeking an instructor with Microsoft Certified Professional credentials. I was a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and I figured the job would be an easy way to generate some income while I looked for my next enterprise IT position. Twenty-two years later, I’m still a technology instructor. I get to make a positive impact in people’s lives, teaching (usually) online from the comfort of home. It’s a good fit,” says Dennis.
Dennis is extremely connected to his Cybersecurity training because it doesn’t just offer certification prep, it teaches techniques that produce better security in his students’ real-world workplaces. According to Dennis, “Education changes lives—technical education certainly changed mine. I will always go the extra mile for my students, doing whatever it takes to help them achieve their goals. I want to be a part of their success and give them the tools they need to excel in their careers.” Dennis can think of no better opportunity for a technical trainer to contribute to the good of society. “The bad guys are real. They’re getting smarter. And the work instructors are doing with cybersecurity training helps us level the playing field,” says Dennis.
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Looking ahead to the future, Dennis plans to continue the important work he has been doing as an instructor. “I think the future of training is what I do in a typical workday in the New Horizons Online Live platform. I get to share expert guidance with a global audience from the comfort and safety of my office at home and I’m looking forward to continuing to do that for years to come.”
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April 2022 Instructor Excellence Award: Al Wills
Al Wills is a Senior Technical Trainer at New Horizons at Logical Operations. His current training includes technical courses from CertNexus, Microsoft, and CompTIA. Al started working in adult education in 1993, moving to IT certification training in 1999, starting with Novell Netware 4.0. With a passion for cybersecurity topics, he has trained hundreds of students, providing them with CyberSAFE and CyberSec First Responder skills.
For Al, the process of becoming an instructor started in the early 90s. His employer at the time interviewed him for a new position that dealt with learning and deploying an industry-specific line of software. This involved installing computers with dial-up modems at the remote locations, then training end-users how to use the computers and the software. At the time, Al knew very little about computer hardware and software, but both captured his interest. Learning what he needed to know to be effective in his role was no small task, but he was up for the challenge. “After years of working in that position, the company sold, and I was in the 'what do I do next' place in my life.” Al reflected on many of the employees he had trained and remembered all of the “aha” moments he helped create. These moments meant so much to him that they helped him realize that he wanted to continue training. Three months later, Al was working with a training provider and he has been in the training industry ever since.
For years, Al focused on building his training expertise in Server and Client operating systems topics. Recently, he has been focused more on hot topics such as cybersecurity and cloud technologies. It’s in those areas where Al spends most of his time. Al attributes the reason for this big shift in topics to times changing. “When times change, so do customers’ training needs. These shifts that occur in the training world are inevitable and they provide valuable opportunities to broaden my skill set and knowledge on the topics I train,” Al says. “The biggest reason I teach the topics I do is that the landscape is constantly changing which allows me to continue to learn and instruct new technologies.”
Training isn’t just an occupation for Al. For him, training is a meaningful way to discuss topics that can be rather difficult to comprehend, especially when he comes across students fresh out of college or new to their positions at work. “Providing students with a sense of clarity and understanding of the big picture and how the cogs in the wheel work together is one of my passions in training.” Al also loves that with training, he is able to give students “take-aways” or a better understanding of their role, that can be put into production as soon as right after they leave class.
Throughout Al’s accomplished career as a trainer, he has reached many milestones, but to him, one of the most important occurred before he came on board at Logical Operations. Al spent 10 years contracting, meeting with customers, discussing skill gaps, then putting together a myriad of topics that were tailored to the clients’ needs. “At the time, there was the standard need for canned course delivery, but I excelled in the custom course offerings. To this day, I still get requests for custom training, which makes me feel proud that my work in contracting was, and still is, extremely valued.” In addition, Al is proud and honored to have been named the CertNexus Instructor of the Year for North America in 2021.
Looking ahead, Al is certain that training and teaching will be a part of his life for a long time. According to Al, “There is something special about learning a new topic well enough that you are able to teach it to other to people. I love that feeling! So, my plan for the immediate future is to stay current with my certifications and gain ones.”
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Submit Your Instructor Nominations for May
 We're recognizing instructors who have reached key milestones and made a meaningful impact in the training world. Do you want to nominate an instructor who you feel deserves to be recognized in the next Logically Speaking? Visit the Logical Operations Instructor Community (LOIC) page to get more insight into what the Instructor Spotlight is all about.
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Teaching Variations: Making the Most of the Time You Have
by Jon O'Keefe, Technology Education Jedi
 In today’s time-starved and abbreviated world, not every training class is going to afford you the opportunity to deliver the entire suite of content. There will be times when you’ll be asked to take a full day’s worth of training and break it down into shorter sections or take a four-hour class and teach it over an hour. This can be a challenge for even the most seasoned instructors.
When faced with time restrictions, there are a few tricks you can use to make sure you’re still conveying the most important parts of the course in the time you have. Here are my suggestions for tackling this difficult assignment:
- Condense similar information to one slide/talking point. In longer classes, it often makes sense to explain key concepts multiple times, to have multiple slides on them, or to do multiple activities to drive the point home. Condensing all of these into a single talking point or slide can save a ton of time, and you can still drive the importance of the point home.
- Emphasize key points or information that is necessary to pass any assessment or credential exam. While this may feel like “teaching to the test”, sometimes you are left with no choice but to at least highlight important information for the assessment as you move quickly through the class
- What’s the story you’re trying to tell? For many classes, we aren’t just teaching to an assessment, but we are trying to tell a coherent story about a topic. You can edit out parts of the story that a student doesn’t need in a live session and point them towards the curriculum where they can find those extra bits of information.
- Utilize an asynchronous platform/experience to deliver content you simply don’t have time to deliver. Whether you prerecord yourself teaching certain sections of the class, or you give students extra materials to work with once they are done with the live section of the class, this is a great way to make sure you’re still getting all the content in within your time constraints.
Over the next few years, we are going to see more requests for shortened, skills-based delivery of courses in the ILT realm. These tips above can help you tailor your classes to make sure you can deliver any content with any time restrictions.
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CyberSAFE and Cybersecurity Insurance: A Match Made in Cyber Heaven
by Jon O'Keefe, Technology Education Jedi
According to Fortune Business Insights, the cybersecurity insurance market size in the United States is expected to rise from 7.60 billion dollars in 2021 to 36.85 billion dollars by 2028. That’s a growth rate of almost 25%, making cybersecurity insurance one of the fastest-growing markets on the planet.
 Most cybersecurity insurance requires organizations to perform and have proof of end-user awareness training. CyberSAFE comes with compliance tracking results that we can provide to any organization that is using this for their cybersecurity insurance policy through reporting available on our Logical Operations CHOICE platform.
Don’t let your clients trust another end-user training when CyberSAFE can give them everything they need to be compliant and check all the boxes for their cybersecurity insurance policy.
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Is Your Company's Support Team CyberSAFE?
by Chandra Foster, VP, Global Client Services
 It’s important for everyone in your company to be security conscious, but your support team is the most vulnerable since they receive the most emails, phone calls, and chats.
Taking the CyberSAFE course will ensure your support team knows what to look for and what to do when they receive suspicious communication.
You don’t want your support team to fall victim to a computer virus or a data breach because they clicked on a malicious link embedded in an email or provided sensitive information over the phone or via chat.
Stay safe by following this link to purchase the latest CyberSAFE material at https://store.logicaloperations.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=cybersafe.
Any questions, contact our CyberSAFE support team at assist@logicaloperations.com or call 1-800-456-4677.
Chandra Foster
VP, Global Client Services
assist@logicaloperations.com
1-800-456-4677 option 2
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Meet Tuuli Eaton, Head of International Growth
As a Finnish native based in the UK, I’m thrilled to have joined Logical Operations to lead the newly established International Growth team. I have spent most of my 20+ year career in technology training and certifications, working very closely with instructors and training partners, both academic and commercial, in sales, marketing, strategy, and programs to grow the community of certified professionals.
In my role as International Head of Growth, I help partners expand and grow their training business. Our team of Partner Enablement Specialists is there to act as trusted advisors, helping our customers navigate our numerous training solutions and advising on trends we are seeing internationally, like the growing demand for cybersecurity training. We’re creating value for our customers by sharing best practices and developing easily consumable marketing assets that will help them generate training demand.
What do I like most about working at LO? The supportive culture, for one. The number of opportunities here also excites me; this is a technology company as much as a source of great learning content, including customization tools, eBook hosting, distribution, and engagement platform for instructors and students, micro-credential options, subscription models, hands-on labs and much more - from a partner perspective, LO truly aspires to be an easy one to do business with.
Something you may not know about me is that I have what could be considered the “geeky gene.” Honoring the late Sir Clive Sinclair, my first coding experience was with Sinclair Spectrum 48k (my first computer). Without knowing it was called “coding” or “programming”, I first drew circles to make a snowman on a screen in basic when I was nine or ten years old. Beyond technology, I have lots of other mostly sporty interests, of which my favorite is horse riding.
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