BSides: Tech skills need biz edge

IT executives and coders need to complement tech skills with business savvyness in order to promote their projects and achievements.

Speaking at the BSides London conference, RandomStorm senior security engineer Robin Wood said there was a need for software developers and security pros to speak talk to management and wider IT teams.

“[They] need to have people-skills to talk to management and clients -- you have got to know how to do it," Wood said.

"If you cannot talk at the management level, then you have got to talk to them in a way that they understand."

A response to a small online survey of 305 IT pros run by Wood said that "business skills are more important than technical skills" adding that "if you cannot write a report then all testing is worthless”.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents said they were penetration testers, 49 percent were vulnerability auditors and 45 percent were system administrators.

In terms of program knowledge, 81 per cent knew Python, 79 per cent Bash, 43 per cent Ruby and 41 per cent C.  

This article originally appeared at scmagazineuk.com