Trend Micro, Inc. is opening more opportunities to qualified IT professionals in the Philippines. The global security vendor has recently launched its Trend Micro Certified Professional Programs, a series of educational courses that aim to develop more experts in cybersecurity in the country.
“Trend Micro will provide hands-on training to IT professionals from various organizations across the country,” said Trend Micro PH Country Manager Ian Felipe. “The goal is to equip more Filipino professionals with more knowledge and skills required to handle and address cybersecurity issues.”
The first Certification Program to be offered is the SOC (Security Operations Center) Fundamentals, a 5-day course that will be offered for free at the Trend Micro headquarters in Pasig City to the pilot batch (the first batch was set in August 2019). The program will come with fees for the succeeding batches. SOC Fundamentals is recommended to Security Analysts, System Administrators, Cyber Threat Investigators, Threat Hunters, and Security Monitoring Specialists of various organizations.
The two other Certification Programs will be the SOC Analysts Professional and the Advanced Threats Defense Certification. The start of registration for both paid courses will be announced soon.
Trend Micro PH Country Manager Ian Felipe during the Certication Programs launch
“The road to digital transformation is rife with challenges, especially where cybersecurity is concerned,” said Trend Micro Chief Information Officer Max Cheng. “While complex and evasive cyberattacks are getting in the way, visibility is becoming more difficult to achieve while a global shortage of cybersecurity skills gap ensues.”
Cybersecurity skills gap
The current shortage of professionals with the right cybersecurity skills is estimated to reach up to 3 million globally. About 2 million of those are in the Asia-Pacific region. This means that even if more businesses are willing to hire analysts to do the job, there is a scarcity in analysts equipped with the skills required.
“In the Philippines, there is a mismatch between job requirements and the available skill set. Gaps in education and training have been identified as among the major challenges faced by the country’s IT sector. In general, many Filipino graduates and jobseekers may still require additional training to become employable,” Cheng revealed.
In photo (from left to right): Trend Micro PH Country Manager Ian Felipe, Trend Micro Chief Information Officer Max Cheng, Director of Threat Research Myla Pilao, and Threat Hunting and Training Head Alma Alvarez
To help address this pressing problem, Trend Micro has also launched its Managed and Detection Response (MDR) service, which adheres to the company’s XDR (a system using a vast and comprehensive set of data for effectively finding even obscure threats). “MDR allows organizations to fast-track in digital transformation so those businesses can leverage technology for their operations,” Cheng said.
MDR center in the Philippines
Due to its complexity, MDR is exclusively carried out by a dedicated team with advanced security expertise and skills in detecting sophisticated threats. The company’s Manila headquarters now serves as an MDR center. Some of Trend Micro PH’s 1,000 local engineers are now assigned to the MDR service that covers global demand for three strategic solutions—for the endpoint (user protection), network defense, and hybrid solutions.
Trend Micro’s local workforce has grown from just 14 engineers when Trend Labs (the former name of the company) was established in the Philippines in 1998 to over 1,000 to date. That is about 17 percent of the firm’s current total global workforce of around 6,000 employees. That has also been translating to better figures for Trend Micro PH—for the past 5 years, revenue growth of the unit has been growing at an average of 32 percent year-on-year, while industry penetration has expanded into banking, foreign services, governments, telecommunications, broadcasting, and manufacturing.