I just thought that I'd mention this.
Recently, Heartland Systems Inc., the company that manufactures many of the credit card machines used in the U.S. and manages the network that those macines run on, was hacked by a two person (that they know of) team consisting of a young guy here in the U.S. and a Russian guy (eastern Eurpoean or Russian, can't remember which, but believed to have ties to the Russian mob, so probably Russian, BTW the Russian mob/government has some of the best hackers in the world working for them).

The incoming data packets CC machine manufacturers receive (for verification of credit and available funds) are split into peices immediately after they enter their main system, unfortunately, the sniffer program the hackers installed was right inside the entry point for all data packets, so instead of having to search for the packet chunks in different areas (and increasing their chances of getting caught), they got a full read of the packet as it entered the system, while it was still intact. And so, for several (believed to be 2) years these persons were reading all credit card transactions that went over the Heartland network.

Info compromised: Names, CC#, CC card expiration dates, and full access to personal info in corporate records. For several years these guys were MANUFACTURING fake credit cards, perpetrating identity theft, and using stolen CC#s for transactions over the internet. The hack lasted so long because they were careful not to over use it.

I worked at a company that used Heartland CC machines for several years. It really pisses me off to think about the fact that every time I swiped someone's CC through that fucking machine I was giving these bastards that persons CC card info. This is the reason I've switched majors to computers and intend to get a CISSP Cert.

Good choice. I have had my CISSP for 3 years now. Security is both fun and important. When the economy is in trouble they need more not less security specialists.

Not to mention that there are only something like 30,000 CISSP certified people on the planet and you can mostly write your own check. I'm already a gunsmith, but, I've discovered recently that a person can starve relying on gunsmithing skills. Even here in the "gun crazy" (according to the rest of the first-world) U.S.

In the gun world these days, it's not what you know, it's who you know or are willing to blow. Unfortunately for my gunsmithing career, I have moral standards. Well, a few anyway.

Don't stop with the CISSP. It's the mark of a useless policy weenie to only have the CISSP. Get a technical SANS cert or similar hard core TECHNICAL security cert. Given a choice, people who know what they are doing will go for the guy with SANS cert, but HR and managers tends to want CISSP.

Why is that? This doesn't seem like it would always be true-sure here and there it might play out like that, but we're talking about currency that's probably more stable than our own, today. I can see tariffs, taxes or games at the exchange rate-but flat out not accepting the currency of one of the ten most powerful entities in the world? Seems unlikely.




Instead of China insert any of the big ten, and it's the same thing.

Is that like the CISSP+ cert? I was considering that instead of just the CISSP. The Dean of the Computers Dept. suggested the CISSP+ cuz she knows I like to get hands on with stuff.

CISSP is as he said above is for policy guys. It covers a great many security disciplines. After that you need to get experience in specific things. Cisco or Juniper certs for routing and switching. Sans certs are popular, and etc. But no amount of certs compare to having experience. Get into the field and start working.


Consider corp script to be like foreign currency. It is foreign everywhere except for in the enclave itself. Banks and the like will take it, and anywhere with a week currency might take it (especially if it happens to be near a corporate enclave), but for the most part, it is not accepted for normal transactions. Imagine going to a restaurant in Germany, and offering Yuan to pay for the meal. The shopkeeper is not used to Chinese money, and has no clue whether it is counterfeit. The strength of the currency is irrelevant. You can always pay with your Visa debit card drawn on a Chinese bank however. The bank will automatically convert the currency at the latest exchange, and it is basically transparent to both parties.