SCIPP International Awarded ANSI Accredititation for Security Awareness Certificate Programs

Online, February 10, 2010 (Newswire.com) - NEWS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Sunshine Sandridge
SCIPP International, Inc.
+1 703.637.4390
[email protected]

SCIPP INTERNATIONAL AWARDED ANSI
ACCREDITATION FOR SECURITY AWARENESS
CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS

First Security Awareness Company in the World to Receive
ANSI Accreditation Against New American National Standard
for Certificate Programs - Sets New International Benchmark

VIENNA, Va., Feb. 1, 2010 - SCIPP International, a global non-profit organization
dedicated to providing world-class, ANSI-accredited, security awareness certificate programs for
end-users and web application developers announced today that both its End-User Security
Awareness (EUSA) and Secure Web Application Development Awareness (SWADA) Certificate
Programs have been awarded accreditation by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
The SCIPP International EUSA and SWADA Certificate Programs are the first security awareness
certificate programs in the world to achieve ANSI accreditation against the new American National
Standard (ASTM E-2659, "Standard Practice for Certificate Programs").
The SCIPP International EUSA Certificate Program awards internationally-recognized
certificates to end-users who participate in the security awareness course and successfully pass
the SCIPP EUSA Post-Assessment. The SCIPP International SWADA Certificate Program awards
internationally-recognized certificates to web application developers who participate in the secure
web application development awareness course and successfully pass the SCIPP SWADA Post-
Assessment.
"We are honored to be the first security awareness company in the world to be awarded
ANSI accreditation for our security awareness certificate programs," said Dow A. Williamson,
CISSP, CSSLP, executive director of SCIPP International. "This new ANSI Certificate
Accreditation Program sets a new global benchmark for the quality of certificate issuing bodies.
And, in the security awareness business, it sets a new yardstick for annual security awareness
programs. If you're responsible for implementing an annual security awareness program, your
executive management, auditors, and shareholders expect you to implement the best program
possible for your end-users. An ANSI-accredited certificate program is the evidence you need to
be able to say 'I did implement a quality program'."
The ANSI Certificate Accreditation Program (ANSI-CAP) accredits certificate issuing bodies
against the American National Standard - ASTM E-2659, "Standard Practices for Certificate
Programs." This new accreditation program is a "sister" accreditation program to the ANSI
Accreditation Program for Personnel Certification Bodies, which has been in place for a number of
years and accredits personnel certification issuing bodies against the ISO/IEC 17024 standard,
"General Requirements for Bodies Operating Certification of Persons."
With a lack of international regulation, oversight or monitoring consistently applied to all
awareness, training, and/or education bodies that offer certificates and no internationally
recognized set of criteria to evaluate the quality of these programs, employers are unclear about
the meaning of certificates. Specific guidelines are needed to differentiate among certificate
programs with varying levels of rigor, and to determine how they differ from professional personnel
certifications. ANSI-CAP aims to meet this need by providing neutral, third-party accreditation that
a given certificate program meets ASTM E-2659, a voluntary consensus standard that describes
the characteristics of a quality certificate program.
"ANSI-CAP provides neutral, third-party attestation that a given certificate program meets an
American National Standard and promotes better educated and qualified workers," said Roy Swift,
Ph.D, senior director of personnel credentialing accreditation programs. "SCIPP International
demonstrated its commitment to superior quality by meeting this standard which provides
benchmarks for the design of certificate programs. With these evaluations and benchmarks in
place, workers and employers are better able to determine the value and meaning of individual
personnel certificates. We are extremely pleased that the SCIPP International security awareness
certificate programs have been awarded accreditation against this new standard - thus raising the
quality bar for international security awareness and training community."
For more information on the SCIPP International security awareness certificate programs,
visit www.SCIPPinternational.org. For more information regarding the ANSI-CAP, visit
www.ansi.org.
About ANSI
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is a private non-profit organization whose
mission is to enhance U.S. global competitiveness and the American quality of life by promoting,
facilitating, and safeguarding the integrity of the voluntary standardization and conformity
assessment system. Its membership is comprised of businesses, professional societies and trade
associations, standards developers, government agencies, and consumer and labor organizations.
The Institute represents the diverse interests of more than 125,000 companies and organizations
and 3.5 million professionals worldwide.
The Institute is the official U.S. representative to the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) and, via the U.S. National Committee, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC),
and is a U.S. representative to the International Accreditation Forum (IAF).
About SCIPP International
SCIPP International™ is a global non-profit organization dedicated to providing ANSI-accredited
certificate programs to address security awareness problems where they are most prevalent - at
the human level. Based in Vienna, Virginia, USA, with offices in London and Hong Kong, SCIPP
solves compliance and risk mitigation requirements through its internationally-recognized End-User
Security Awareness (EUSA) and Secure Web Application Development Awareness (SWADA)
certificate programs for end-users and web application developers. All SCIPP certificate programs
are based upon the SCIPP Generally-Accepted Practices (SCIPP GAP™) - common bodies of
knowledge describing SCIPP's generally-accepted best business practice areas vetted by an
international advisory board of leading security and business experts. More information is
available at www.SCIPPinternational.org.
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