Certification - September 2008 - (Page 37)

At the individual level, a person who cheats risks not only certification status, but also his or her career and reputation. Most certifying agencies state in their security policies that a person who is suspected or found guilty of cheating can be subject to consequences such as nullification of exam results, loss of existing credentials, expulsion from the certification program and even notification of the employer. It’s possible for a person to ruin a career over certification fraud. The company that employs a cheater can be affected in numerous ways, as well. For example, an unqualified employee might be placed in a position of great responsibility. And IT projects staffed with unqualified personnel have a greater rate of failure and can result in huge financial losses for the company. Also, if the employer happens to be a value-added reseller of IT solutions from a specific manufacturer, it could lose authorization to sell the manufacturer’s products. Certification fraud also robs IT solution manufacturers of their intellectual property. A single certification examination costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop. When elements from the exam are for sale, that investment is diminished. Finally, the general public can be put at risk by certification fraud. Suppose, for example, that a credit card validation system is compromised because an unqualified individual designed it. This can put credit information for thousands or millions of people at risk and can cause millions of dollars in damages. Beating Cheating ITCC is working to combat certification fraud in a number of ways. First, the member companies are working with test centers such as Prometric and Pearson VUE to analyze the test results from every exam to understand how people take the exams. This data can help establish a baseline of behavior, such as how long a person typically spends on each item and the overall test. ITCC then can identify anomalous scores and results and probe further to determine if cheating was the root cause. Though the IT vendors are not sharing the data forensics from individual exams, when one company discovers a rash of anomalous behavior or test scores in one testing center, it will let peers know so the center can be monitored or investigated. September 2008 CERTIFICATION MAGAZINE http://www.prometric.com http://www.vue.com

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Certification - September 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Data Stream Virtual Village Tech Careers Dear Techie Troubleshooting Academic Connection What We Like Look Ahead So You Want to Be an IT Major The Title Is Information Officer… Chief Information Officer Interface Network Administration: Working From the Ground Up Inside Certification Ad Index Endtag

Certification - September 2008

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