The Art of Network Engineering

Ep 129 - Exploring Tech Certification Challenges with Brent Morris

A.J., Andy, Dan, Tim, and Lexie Episode 129

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Imagine this: you're a tech enthusiast who's just passed the Security Plus exam. You're filled with immense pride, but also a newfound understanding of the importance of failure and taking training seriously. We explore this in depth with Tim Bertino, a fellow tech enthusiast who shares his candid insights and experiences. A.J. also talks about his first USNUA meeting and the local NUG network user group he formed — a testament to the power and value of community in the tech world.

We then shift gears and delve into the world of exam security as we welcome Brent Morris, the Program Manager for Cisco's certification, security, investigations, and enforcement. He shares the critical role exam security plays in safeguarding customer investments and maintaining the integrity of Cisco's certification program. From discussing potential cheating methods to the severe consequences of violations, Brent gives us a riveting look at the complexities and challenges in maintaining exam security.

Finally, we unpack the nitty-gritty of Cisco's approach to combat cheating. Brent discusses the development of valid exam questions and the intricate collaboration between Cisco and its testing vendor, PearsonVue. He talks about the complexities of mobile CCIE labs, expert-level exams, and the constant challenge of cheating. By the end of this episode, you'll understand the lengths Cisco goes to preserve the integrity of their certification exams and gain a deeper appreciation for the value of genuine knowledge and skill in the tech industry.

Contact Cisco Exam Security for questions or to report a violation:
security-tipline@cisco.com

Follow Cisco Exam Security on Twitter: @CiscoExamSec

A big thank you to our sponsor: Unimus! Interested in a device agnostic NCM software to streamline and automation configuration management for your entire network? Check out Unimus! https://unimus.net/

Find everything AONE right here: https://linktr.ee/artofneteng

Speaker 1:

This is the Art of Network Engineering podcast. In this podcast we'll explore tools, technologies and technology people. We aim to bring you information that will expand your skill sense and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers. Welcome to the Art of Network Engineering. I am AJ Murray at no Blinky Blinky and tonight I am joined by Tim Bertino. He is at Tim Bertino on Twitter. Tim, how are you doing? Good to see you again.

Speaker 2:

I am fantastic, aj, I passed the Security Plus this week.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's right, Congratulations oh thank you.

Speaker 2:

I just it's always a big lift off my shoulders because I put I put a lot into it because I'm a terrible test taker. So I feel like I really need to now. I know we've talked about, you know, the importance of failure, plaques and that kind of thing, and it's okay to fail because you learn from it. But I, I just I like to go through these certification, practice training, whatever you want to call it with the goal of not just passing the test but wanting to make sure I understand the material that goes into the training and everything.

Speaker 2:

So I'm I'm a low and slow kind of guy when it comes to cooking up these, these training excursions, if you will. So I usually prepare for quite a long time. So when I go into an exam, I I want to feel like I can come away with a pass, and not that I'm necessarily just kind of trying to gauge where I'm at. It's just not that there's anything wrong with that other approach, but that's just the way I take it. So I spent like six months prepping for it. So and I was super nervous too, because I was like taking practice tests and all that kind of thing and they were not like coming out very well.

Speaker 2:

So I'm like well when I, when I purchased the training, I did a exam voucher and a retake with it. So I'm like I really want to get it done before the fourth of July holiday, because it's about the time we're recording this, and if it doesn't come out, well then at least I got a. I got a retake voucher, so, but luckily, luckily came out on top and I can enjoy the holiday.

Speaker 1:

So what's?

Speaker 2:

what's going on with you?

Speaker 1:

Well, congratulations Tim.

Speaker 2:

Thank you.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I had my very first. I held my very first and attended my very first USNUA meeting. So the USNUA is the US network user association and after hearing Jason Gintern's episode that we had here a few months ago, I got a little bit more curious about the USNUA and I decided to become a leader and form a local NUG network user group. So I found another network engineer in the area that I was, you know, friends with and I was like, hey, there's this thing, we could start it, what do you think? And he, he jumped on board.

Speaker 1:

So we held our first NUG meeting last week at a local brewery and we had like 30 people show up and Jason, the one of the founders of the USNUA. He flew up from Ohio and spent some time in Vermont with his wife but he came up and kicked off our inaugural event and he said he's just like you guys are killing it. This is the largest attendance we've ever seen at an inaugural meeting, so that this is a fantastic start to things up here in Vermont. So I'm pretty excited about that Met some new network engineers in the area and you know, not everybody's a network engineer. Of course they have like networking in their title with what they do. So it was just nice to make some new connections and, quite frankly, do some in-person events after not doing in-person events for quite a while. So it was an awful lot of fun.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to have to have a conversation with you about that, maybe Jason as well, because my state does not have one and it seems like they've really got their stuff together as far as empowering the people who are trying to start these and give them a lot of help and make it so they're not on their own. So, yeah, I'm probably going to have to have a conversation with you about that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. I will say that, coming from like the leader side of it, you know, myself and my co-lead all we had to do was jump on a couple of half hour meetings, like at bi-weekly. We met with the team at the USNUA. They gave us a lot of pointers, a lot of good information and a ton of support along the way. We provided to them a number of venues in the area that we felt would be good to host an event like this, and they did all the work. They called the venues, they got the pricing, they did the negotiations, they handled the contracts and they paid for everything.

Speaker 1:

You know, the busiest, the most time consuming part of it, of course, was the day of the event. They shipped me a box of t-shirts so I could hand out some free shirts and stickers for everybody. And then, you know, there was a lot of other like smaller items, right, like sign-in sheets and some other little details and stuff like that. But leading up to it and planning it, it couldn't have been easier. The USNUA handled it all. So you know, I will absolutely encourage you.

Speaker 1:

If you're thinking about starting a Nebraska Nug, definitely, and I can introduce you or connect you with the USNUA team there and then anybody who's listening like find an event, find a local event, get out there, check it out. They're fun. It's what I really like about these events is that they have sponsors and it's no sales pressure, right, like they don't even let the sponsors do the sales pitch, it's just come out, talk tech. You know. You might have a panel and a couple of speakers talking about hot topics and networking, but there's no sales pitch, there's no pressure from salespeople. There's just, you know, nerding out and maybe some drinks and some food. It's a good time.

Speaker 2:

Can you give a quick briefing on the topics that were covered in the inaugural Vermont event?

Speaker 1:

Phil Gervasi drove up and he attended the Nug and he gave a great talk on, you know, telemetry and just some real good thought leadership in the area of what's going on there. And then we had a few panelists Charlie O'Rei Ordon from our Discord. He's in New Hampshire and his company sponsored part of the part of the event and then he was on the panel as well. We had some other folks on the panel and we just talked about topics like what do you think the impact of 400 gig is going to have on what we do, and some other stuff like that. So it's really really good, Good stuff.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, super exciting Cool.

Speaker 1:

So your win on taking a certification exam and passing is really good timing for tonight's topic. I am very excited to welcome to the show this evening Brent Morris. He is the Cisco certification, security, investigations and enforcement's program manager. Such a cool title, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the show. I don't throw this word around very much because I probably shouldn't be allowed to say it, but that is a baller title. Yeah, yeah, I'm the enforcement's manager.

Speaker 4:

That's kind of what I do too. So, hey guys, my name is Brent Morris. I'm the enforcement's manager for our dedicated exam security team with our Cisco certifications program. So basically what I do is I do the enforcement side of things. We're looking for any type of exposure for candidates and testing centers and websites and I'm taking the enforcement's actions against them. We're taking down websites. We're finding candidates that are cheating. We're finding testing centers that are colluding. So I'm part of a two-man team and we're trying to mitigate the security the best way we can.

Speaker 2:

So, brent, let's kind of talk about the why behind that. So if people find exam answers or they find a way to cheat and they end up getting a certification, you know ultimately it's not going to bode well for them in the long run because at some point they're going to have to show their knowledge on the job and they're not going to be able to, so ultimately they're going to kind of hurt themselves. So why is enforcing exam security overall important to Cisco and their certification program?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean, the way we look at it at Cisco is we want to protect the investment of the customer, right? I mean let's just say I can. It spends, you know, six months going through boot camps and taking off work and spending all this money to become certified. And then there's one guy who goes to a website and finds all the answers and becomes certified as well. I mean, you know, we're a team trying to protect that investment for the person who did the right way, right, and they want to see us take those enforcement actions because they don't want to see their colleague who passed the easy way to have the same certification as them.

Speaker 4:

So it's really the value and how we want to protect that, because that makes it meaningful, right? I mean, if a Cisco certification, if everybody could pass it, if it was easy, you know, if AJ said, hey, I passed the CCIA last night after I finished dinner, it was no big deal, it wouldn't mean anything, right, I mean it wouldn't. So that's the angle that we try to take is, you know, hold that integrity of it, the values got to hold, and that's what makes it so important. That's kind of the angle we go.

Speaker 2:

I want to know what AJ had for dinner. My weed, that's the CCIA. Yeah, that's great.

Speaker 1:

So there's so many questions. So we're definitely protecting the investment that you know we're all making as we're studying for these exams. We're protecting the validity of it. So when somebody says I have my CCNA, my CCNP, my CCIA, whatever it is, it means something right, it's valuable, right. So that's some, I guess, common ways that you know people might try to cheat the exams.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean there's lots of ways and you know we can go into some stories too, but you know the typical having a cheat sheet, right, you could have a, you know, a cell phone electronic device in a room. We've seen people who have shorts that they pull up and they've got all the answers written on their legs. We've seen people that are this is a true story. I've dressed up as a drape in the background, actually, as the test is going on oh, get out here and stop and said there's, there's a person.

Speaker 4:

Stories are unbelievable, you know, people who, who leave the room and come back. Proxy testing, that's, that's a big one. So it's just endless ways you can have hidden cameras. It's just as you can imagine. There's, there's always ways to to cheat on the exam, and the way I always like to kind of look at it is with, with cheating, there's, there's three buckets that we kind of put it in right and we say that there's going to be people who cheat all the time. It doesn't matter what it is. If, tim, what's your favorite football team? The example.

Speaker 2:

I Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Speaker 4:

Okay, so if I gave you a quiz right and I said I will give you I don't know a million dollars If you got some questions right, you would probably find a way to get you know. I mean, sometimes, sometimes they have to do what they have to do to pass. Yeah, the stakes are high, yeah, that's right. And then there's some people who just will never cheat, right they're, though just what does? It doesn't matter what the stakes are, they're never going to cheat. But there's that middle. Is that middle bucket where it just depends on the circumstance right that I have to pass this exam to get this job? What do I have to do? And we're trying to teach those people that if you do that, you're going to get caught with Cisco and it goes back to the validity of exam. The whole point of you doing this is to have that knowledge. You're not going to have it, so is it eventually going to catch up to you? So that's those the areas we focus on.

Speaker 1:

So one of the examples that you mentioned earlier was somebody writing all the answers on their on their legs. And I'm thinking like man, the the CCNP encore is like 105 questions, like how are you going to fit 105 questions and answers on your legs and then the question pool is several hundred questions. I mean, how are you going to? How are you? I? Just that blows my mind.

Speaker 2:

That's a pretty personal question, aj, yeah, I mean I guess it could be like.

Speaker 4:

I guess it comes back to like what, what, what brain dumps are, and they can kind of like memorize certain things and it helps them memorize what questions that they've seen before. If they've seen the unauthorized questions online or something or a bootcamp, it helps them memorize. So, yeah, we've seen arms. We've seen teddy bear behind somebody with a camera. We've seen, like I said, people. There was one person that was laying down the ground that were, you know, they said move your camera and you could see the person kind of recording.

Speaker 2:

It's, it's some crazy sneak away like a snake, yeah.

Speaker 4:

So you know, but a lot of you know this is. I want to this platform today to kind of explain to. Sometimes it's a cultural issue, right, you know where us three we might see that as cheating. Right, you know, that's, that's it. Wait a minute. You got the answers. You shouldn't be deserved this. But some cultures it's. They have to feed their family. They'll do whatever it takes to pass these exams and they don't look at it as cheating. They just look at it as I'm doing what I have to do to to get this certification. So we got to be careful and educate those people to understand what is considered cheating and what is not, and what can you be stripped away all your certification that you've been working for for the past 10 years. So that's something that we try to do as well.

Speaker 1:

All right. So so we've kind of discussed like some of the different things that we've. You know, you've seen people do an attempt to cheat. We've talked a lot about dumps. Dumps comes up an awful lot, like whenever I've passed an exam and posted online, that's like one of the first things I get hit up with, right Like, oh, where'd you get your dumps? Can I get your dumps? And a few times I've had to say like hey, like that's, that's not how this works. And they're like oh really, oh, I didn't know that. And it's like well, that's funny, excuse me what so?

Speaker 1:

so, with all of these, these crazy things that people are trying to do to pass the exams, you know outside the lines of, you know, approved methods, what are some things that you and your team are trying to do to help combat some of this?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean, there's always going to be cheating, right. It's just the best way that we can mitigate, the best way possible and the best way really for us is just to try to find out where the source of these problems are, and we've figured out that a lot of these. There's some organizations like around the world that provide these, these cheat services, right, and they provide just all the answers to these tests. But a ways that we try to get around that is, we have some proactive ways that that we can catch cheaters right. Actually, you know, while you're taking a test, we have data analytics that can that can say that we have enough suspicion, based on how you're taking the test, that it could actually terminate the exam Like well, what yeah, while it's happening in real time?

Speaker 4:

in real time. Wow so there's, there's, and I can't go into those specifics to tell you exactly how we do that.

Speaker 4:

But we've got some really cool stuff, some really next level technology that we're using. Now We've got, you know, we use our, the people who design these exams. We try to implement security in some of the questions that help. In some of these security initiatives, we try to put out as many forms as possible, right, you know, the think about it the more forms that we have, the more questions, the, the, the bank of questions, it's more difficult to pass the exam. Right? But you know it goes back to what you were saying earlier, aj is that is the having the, the validity has to be protected. Like, you have to have that knowledge in those questions, like creating new questions and, as the technology moves, keeping those goes fresh, but also integrating security inside that as well.

Speaker 4:

But, yeah, we're trying to take down websites. We're trying to define the testing centers. We're trying to add, you know, pearson views our testing vendor and they have a dedicated security team as well. So we work, we collaborate really well together. They've we've had some, we got some new ways that we can protect the, the, the cheating with online exams. As you can imagine, that's a. That was the day I heard that we were going online exams. Man I was. I was scared to death, but we've come a long way since 2020, that some of the stuff we're doing now is incredible. So so just be careful, be careful.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, with the being able to stop the exam in real time. I kind of think of you know the people when they're first learning like a video game and they just mash in buttons. You know you're just going in the exam, you're just going question after question, just hitting them super fast, that that might trip the trigger there, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

So, let's let's step back and talk a little bit of history, brent. When did Cisco specifically see exam security as a challenge or as an issue? And you know how long is your role or a similar role been around.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so. So a dedicated security team was, I think, started around 2010. It was always one person and it was always kind of the wizard of viz is the way he's like kind of explain it. It's always somebody behind the curtain that was really just trying to find out what the website is the most popular and maybe trying to send a cease and assist to them. Now we're taking a totally different approach. We want to come on podcasts like this. We want to have, you know, podcast and YouTube sessions with our certain that's just go learn a network team to let everybody know that there is a dedicated security team just looking for this type of cheating going on. We think that's a better angle to come at because, like I said earlier, it's about the customers that do things the right way. We want to show them how we're protecting their investment. So so, yeah, 2010, I think, is when we really had dedicated team. It was a three. It was a three man team back then. Now it's a two man team.

Speaker 4:

But I think at some point we started to see the, the whack-a-mole of websites. I mean, it just blew up, I mean, and the problem that we started to have an early on was if there was a website called AJ Murray's Cheat Sheets we could take. We could sue you and take it down. Well, a week later, to be AJ Murray tocom, so they would just change the URL and then write back where we started. So is that's when we said, okay, we got to figure out, we got to come up together with the other, with the, with the team here, to focus on not just that one website but the source of the problem, the mothership, this providing all these answers. Where is the proxy testing coming from? Where is the harvesting coming from? To stop it from the top that trickles down. So, but to do that, we had to have just go ahead to have a team to really focus.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that was a question that I've had, that I've kind of tried to to understand better over the years and I don't I don't know how much about this you can necessarily talk about, but like how people get ahold of those, like you can't tell me. People are like remembering the, the questions, this test, and enough to be able to write them down afterwards and, and you know, harvest them that way and sell them. Like if you can tell us, like how do people get these questions? I mean, we've we've seen.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean, like you said, I can't go into specifics, but I can give you a couple examples where we we've seen candidates who come in and just then just go through it really fast and then go back five days later and do it again and go through really fast and they're not even really trying to pass. They're being paid to actually just harvest the questions and then go back and dump them as best they can. Okay, that's just one way, you know. Then you have, you know, going back to online, online testing. I mean, before we started to get really sneaky in 2020, you could just have a camera at a different angle and and and see your screen, or have something hooked up to your monitor or a mirror or something where you can't really tell, and harvest them that way and then goes back to, you know, our testing vendors, pearson View.

Speaker 4:

You know we have over 6000 testing centers around the globe that produce Cisco exams. So, as you can imagine, some of those testing centers are bad actors, right? I mean, somebody walks in with a lot of cash and says, hey, I need to see this exam.

Speaker 4:

I mean, it could be, it could be that way, it could be that easy. So it's it's, it's it's as, as now you can see the challenge that we have to to to to mitigate the exposure the best we can. It's so difficult, and especially now, with the internet is so easy that you can just, it can just blow up any moment, like one website or one message board or one Twitter. It's crazy. So it's it's difficult, but we're, we've got things in place that we're doing. We've seen drastic changes, you know. So we're getting there.

Speaker 2:

So Cisco exams were traditionally in person in a testing center. Like it. Any Cisco exam that I took pre 2020, I went into a physical center to take that and, like you said, in 2020 that all changed. So how, how did your role, how did your team change and how did you have to adapt when 2020 rolled around?

Speaker 4:

well, I mean I was scared at first. I mean when I first heard we were going to all non testing, it scared me. But actually, as crazy as it sounds and still when I say it out loud, it's hard to believe that that the, the pass rates for back then to what it is today is the same. So that could mean a lot of things. It could be. It's more about the candidates that are testing just have that prior knowledge of these exams that they have found somewhere online. So that doesn't matter where you take the exam. If you have the answers, you've got the answers. You don't have to ask actually cheat in person.

Speaker 4:

But some of the, some of the tactics we had to change was is the way we enforced. You know the. You know enforcement that we that we did with. You know who we catch. You know before, if you're caught with in a testing center with a cell phone, that's pretty egregious, right, and that's a lifetime band. We want you out of the program, right.

Speaker 4:

But now let's say that you're taking a test and your daughter comes in, or you got to, you got to use the bathroom or you know. So we had to look at different ways we we had to to explain the, the importance of the differences between in testing and online testing. And what we found out, too is now we we noticed that more people actually like to go in the testing center because now we're getting so secure with the online testing, we have so many things in place with browser lock and the what you have to do and scan your room and you know that it's almost easier to go in a testing center to test now and it's actually more comfortable because you don't have to worry about your wi-fi cutting off for your daughter running in or your power going out or you know a lot of things. So, but as far as the security side of it, it's it's not much different. We we still think the main problem is that, like we said, that the prior knowledge is the finding the questions before is the problem.

Speaker 1:

So that's what we're working on a day by day basis to see if we can mitigate the best we can so you mentioned that you can, using various technologies, you can determine when somebody's like cheating during the test. So does that? Does that say that when you're comparing somebody who just knows the content studied did it right versus cheating there there's a different way that those people are answering the questions.

Speaker 4:

That's detectable yeah, um, I don't want to give away my poker hand here, but it's uh, we have, like, we have actually dedicated, like psychometricians at Cisco that work with us right who who actually will break down the response time and how you answer a question. Did you answer it right or wrong? How many did you get wrong compared to what is exposed and what is not? They're able to to be able to look at that and determine that there was some type of prior knowledge that was going on. Um, it's really all I can say.

Speaker 2:

I'm just like I'm equating this to to like a casino like Vegas, where people are watching all the monitors trying to catch a people counting cards this is just nuts.

Speaker 4:

I never knew that you could do this. But when you actually break down the numbers and and and see the probability of, of of prior knowledge based on not when you when they explain it to me like I was five years old, I'm like wow, this makes sense. And then you really start to dig deeper and you're like they, they knew the questions before it took the test and it's just really wild stuff.

Speaker 1:

That's crazy. So there's, I think of it as, like you know, there's the science of learning and that now there's, like, the science of testating, test taking and, and of course you know, cheating, yeah, and like we're just stretching the surface now and and and look, you know whoever's listening to the the the podcast session here.

Speaker 4:

Don't, don't be afraid to take a Cisco test. That oh my god. But we have to have really a egregious evidence, like multiple pieces of evidence, before we take in type of enforcement act. And you know, if you work caught in the net. I'm not saying it's impossible, but if you were, then you have the chance to appeal and those appeals come to our team and we look at it and it comes to a committee and we make a decision based on every aspect of of where you took the test, how you took it. Maybe there was a reason that you were flagged for that. Um, you know, maybe you used a bootcamp from a specific website that was you didn't know is there's? There's a lot of things that come into play of how we make our decisions based on those enforcement actions interesting yeah, let's talk about those enforcement actions a little bit, if we can.

Speaker 2:

So somebody is is caught. We'll just take the example of the uh, the algorithm or what's happening real time in an exam somebody's caught with. Yeah, we're hitting multiple factors here. You had have to have had prior knowledge of these questions with how you're going through this exam, so we're going to stop the exam. Can you kind of walk us through what happens after that, what the the consequences are, what's the timing of those consequences? Can you speak to any of that?

Speaker 4:

yeah, that's a good question. So I mean with, when I say enforcement actions, I say we have warning letters, right, you can be sent a warning saying hey, what you did, you were flagged for security regularities. There was some type of fraudulent, you know activity. It was flagged. Be careful going in the future, be careful where you get your study material. You know if it's any third party outside of Cisco you could be, you know, affected.

Speaker 4:

Um, then we have. Then we have a six month band, right? Um, then we have a one-year band, a three-year band, and then the big one is the lifetime. And when we sit, when we send the lifetime band, that's we strip all your active certifications in your band for life. Um, and, as you can imagine, that's that's. We don't have the gun isn't smoking. We, we have a video evidence of the gun being fired. I mean, we have, we make sure that we have egregious evidence to take that type of enforcement action.

Speaker 4:

Um, but it just depends on the violation it could be. Um, I think I had a guy last week that was um taking a test and he just had to go to the restroom he said, and the proctor said you can't get up or your exam is going to be terminated. And he said I have no choice, right. So I mean he, you know we, you're told to make use of restroom before, but he left, he left the, the, the recording, and he came back and his exam was terminated and we're not going to ban that, right. I mean we're just going to say, in the future, make sure that you know, you understand the policies and so this won't happen again.

Speaker 4:

So you know, it could be something like that. It could be you could have a cell phone, you're taking a test and also in your cell phone rings and you're you're looking at the proctor saying can I just turn this off, or my alarm's going off. I'm asking I'm not going to ban you for life. You know you're out of here, pal, you know, um. So just, it just depends on the, the, the violation, the, the amount of evidence we have. That will determine the different type of enforcements we give. And we have an appeals process too. So I mean you always have that option to come back and and give us your story. And uh, as you can imagine, some of those appeals are are great, absolutely and again to your point.

Speaker 2:

This isn't to to talk scare tactics, by any means. I just think it's important for people to understand you know what could happen, what the consequences are if, if these different things happen.

Speaker 4:

Right, that's right. That's right. Yeah, I mean it's, it's. I love having this platform to to show people that that look, you know we're not trying to scare you. It's just about, if you do things the right way and you don't go to cheat sheets and cheat sites and find the answers and have people take the test for you, or don't get caught with a hidden camera something, you'll be fine. You know it's okay. But if you do, we're gonna, you know we're gonna catch you and and we've, you know we we take a lot of enforcement actions a year. Um, it's, it's a lot that we catch a lot of people cheating and we feel like, since 10 years ago and is now, they're still cheating and, like I said earlier, there's always going to be cheating. But we can see how we're making it more difficult now, right, so if we catch somebody, it's much more egregious way they're getting caught, rather than before it was just everybody was trying, but now it's just so difficult. We're seeing we're making steps in the right direction so a couple of questions.

Speaker 1:

Um, you talked about like the different lengths of bands and stuff like that. It. It doesn't sound like this is like a three strikes and you're out type of system, but I assume you know, if you're you're dealing with a multiple offender, that each time the punishment is going to get more and more. You're right, it does I mean people could, could skip passing, go and go directly to jail, right? If they're that, agree, agree just on the first offense, then you know they're out.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, for sure. I mean we have. We have a matrix that we go by that you know if you're, if you're flagged by, you know, you know your phone ringing during a test and then you're caught again and it might the enforcement might be a little bit different the second time because you know, or or there are some people that are caught doing something that they didn't even, they didn't realize, like like there was a guy who had a. He had a pen and paper during his online exam session and you're supposed to use the, the electric whiteboard, and he's didn't write. But if he's caught again using the pen and paper a month later and he's taken 304 Cisco exams, it may be a little bit more egregious punishment there, because by now you should know what the policies, the testing policies, are, and then it gets a little bit more suspicious of what exactly are you doing. You know so it just depends.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and just so I understand, like in the cases of the phone ringing or somebody being seen having pen and paper. You know we talked about what some of the enforcement actions are after the fact, but is it cut and dry that in any of those cases the exam is just terminated immediately, or were any of these people able to, or are able to, actually finish the exam?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean again, it depends on the violation. Like we have the real time, the exam will be stopped. Sometimes even the exam won't even load, based on some of our security Can't go into that one. That's a new one. That really that's a big one.

Speaker 4:

But the exam won't even start, based on some of the measures to security measures we have in place, but if they do, it could be something along, as we have enough suspicion. We're not going to ban you, but your exam has been invalid, you know, and it cost you 350 bucks or $400 to take the test.

Speaker 4:

That's a pretty big punishment, right. So enough to where they say you know, I better not do this again or I'm going to lose another four. But, like I said, it's got to be pretty egregious. That enough suspicion that we would, you know, stop the exam like that. But you know, especially with, as you can imagine, with you know, cca labs and that's like you know you're in a lab setting with a laptop, I mean it's you know. So those are really expensive, you know. So you got to be careful with that too. So it just depends, it just depends on the situation and then that's, that's a we don't have like a. We don't have like a line that we draw for every thing, every single type of violation. We see we kind of have to make a decision on the fly sometimes so we've never seen this before we bring a committee together with our, with our learning at Cisco team to say what's the right play here, and usually we feel like we make the pretty good decision based on protecting that integrity of the Cisco certification.

Speaker 1:

Do you have any percentages on, or can you share any percentages on, how often you're you're catching people trying to take advantage of these, these examples?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean I don't, I don't, I don't have. Well, I have that, but I think I'll be pretty slapped on the wrist if I, if I gave those numbers. But I mean, but like, remember, like I said earlier, how the pass rates are actually kind of the same as they were in 2020. So it's not that much different. We're just seeing it trending in the right direction. As far as just we've made it just so difficult for the cheating to happen and we've we've gotten new security measures in place with Pearson view to actually catch you proactively before the exam starts, during the exam, and now after before it was always just after the exam from a website and that's all we could do. Well, now it's just, it's all over. I mean, if somehow you cheated, we're going to find out a way to, to, to. You know, most likely we're going to, we're going to get you.

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Speaker 1:

So question let's say I, I study hard, I take my exam and I pass. And then I hear of another person who maybe went to a testing center down on Shady Lane and they, they, they passed their exam, but it was because they got to take advantage of stuff. Is there a way for me to report that? Do you, do you have? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4:

So I'll go bring this home at the end. This is the most important. But we have a security tip line alias. Right, it's the easiest and best way to contact us. Is is is I'll repeat it too it's security dash tip line at Ciscocom. Okay, so again, a security dash tip line at Ciscocom is that easy. You don't have to go nowhere and open a case and create a login. This is literally. You can just email that alias and that's, that's a, that's a, a, an email that comes actually directly to me and I kind of delegate that to where it needs to go.

Speaker 4:

But this could be, this could be just a simple question hey, is this website okay for me to use to to study for my Cisco exam? I have a buddy, his name is Tim. You know he cheated on this exam. Let's, let's, let's, let's rip his certification away. You know, maybe we'll start an investigation in in A10.

Speaker 4:

Where did you study your your CCNA at? You know, and Tim might say well, I went to this website. And then we go to that website and we see 10 other people's names and then it snowballs into a massive investigation to where we can send a cease and assist to that website and we can take enforcement actions to all the candidates listed on the website. So a simple tip that we get can snowball into a massive home run for us. So we you know we take our tip line serious because we've had a lot of success stories based on just tips coming to us, and that's internal and external. So again, security-tiplinecom, if you have a question, any suspicion website testing center, just send it our way and we'll look at it and we'll get back to you pretty quick. I love it.

Speaker 2:

So I really like that concept of being able to leverage that email tip line to ask questions about the validity of certain training programs and websites, because there is there is so much content out there free content, paid content that you know some are from the major providers that we all know and love, but some are just out there that you can find in a Google search and you don't really know. So I find that that email conversation way of being able to get that information is helpful. Is there anything that is is published within Cisco's website that people can go to to get tips on what to look for when they're looking for training material or practice tests? I think practice test is probably the big thing because you just you want to, you want to check where you're at and you want to get practice tests. And again, there there are the known reputable vendors that do that, but people may just Google search that don't really know any better and say, oh okay, this looks good, I'll pay 20 bucks to this company and get some practice tests.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean that's really tough and and you know we have our, you know our NDA, our confidentiality agreement, that actually you know speaks to some of this, of what you know do's and don'ts, right, and that's on our website. You know Cisco's website. If you go to certifications and you go to you know the, the, the Cisco NDA, it'll break all that down, but that's more like a legal document. That's kind of hard to read but as far as like do's and don'ts.

Speaker 4:

When you go to the testing center, you know you're given a list of of do's and don'ts like it's like a testing procedure in policies, what they call it, and that's really important and in Cisco's work with Pearson View, to make sure that that's really really you know clear about what you can and can't do before you test. So that's always a good way and always just ask questions. You know, ask, ask the proctor that you're taking, you know, or send an email to our alias. But as far as the content though, that's difficult because you don't. There are some good training centers out there. I know some people personally that that run boot camps that really dive into topology and the blueprints and how you learn this technology. They love this stuff, right, and that's okay. That's they're not by, they're not getting paid by Cisco, they're not Cisco affiliated, but they're okay.

Speaker 4:

But we like to say what is kind of safe for us to say if it's not Cisco affiliated, you're always taking a risk, right, because you just never know. So we always like to point people to our Cisco learning network, to Cisco press, to go on our Cisco learning network message boards, see what other people are using, to the best strategies that they use, because those, those conversations are always monitored and obviously if it's something that's kind of you know fraudulent, this is kicked out. But if it's Cisco affiliated, it's always going to be safe. And if you're not sure, if it's a third party, send it to us. Let us just do our research to see how it is, because we may have already investigated that site before and say they're good to go, these are the good guys. Or we might say no, just don't. Just don't go to AJ Murray's cheat sheetscom.

Speaker 1:

That's not a good one, that's not a good one, so I better take that down before you take it down.

Speaker 2:

Yep, no, I'm glad we're having this conversation because I think this will be really beneficial to a lot of people because, I'll be honest with you, brent, I had never heard of that that tip line to be able to either, you know, report some, some misdoings of other folks. But also, I think the the biggest part of that is to be able to ask those questions, like you said, to be able to have the conversation when people don't know, because there are, you know, people that are getting certifications that have been around a while, but there's also people trying to break in and they just they don't know what's good and what's bad yet. So getting this information out there, to know that, hey, here's an email that you can, you can hit to ask us any of these questions, I think is super important.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, and like I said earlier, you know, in the past we were always kind of with Revaz. We were by kind of you know, behind the scenes, and now we're more like front facing, like come to us to ask us questions, you know we'll tell you what we're doing, we're show you some security measures we have in place. You know we're trying to help protect that investment of that you have. And that's what, that's what's important and that's what we want to get out. We want to get the community more involved in helping us protect the you know, help us, help you type thing. So we think that's a better approach and we've seen it trending in that right direction.

Speaker 2:

It's all about the hearts and minds. Now I like it. That's right, that's right.

Speaker 1:

So, brent, I want to ask in the last couple of years, cisco has announced a mobile CCIE lab that has added an extra layer of complexity or heartache to your job. I mean, I think I've seen that people are allowed to bring their own devices to that. So that's, that's got to add some, some stuff for you.

Speaker 4:

Well, it's crazy it sounds. When I heard that, I was even more shocked than the. But when you bring your own device, you have to. You have a thumb drive that you actually log into a. What's the word? It's like a. It's a. You log into a whole another system. It's like a browser lock system that nothing else can be running but that program. And they've actually, we've had our engineers try to get around it, and they can't do it Like unless it's like some.

Speaker 4:

I mean, I'm sure there's a way to do it right, but they haven't. You know it's very secure and I've actually been shown how actually how it works and stuff and you can't even. You can't even shut down the browser lock or you just lock up your whole laptop. So yeah, at first I was scared to. I was like I don't know about this, bring your own device. But if you have to, it's an iOS, is that? Is that sound? Right? It's like you have to log in. It boots up from that.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you boot off the USB Okay. So you're not booting into like Mac or Windows or whatever you're booting into that device?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, and it's a whole other operating system. You have no control. So yeah, it's actually probably more secure than anything else is crazy, you sound as you would think, but yeah, at first I was a little skeptical too, but yeah, after seeing it, yeah, it's pretty pretty secure.

Speaker 1:

How about, like the expert level exams, like the labs and the CCD practical? Do you still encounter people? I mean, you have to go to Cisco facilities. You use Cisco hardware, like, like laptops, computers, whatever I don't exactly know how they administer this the CCD practical but again, you go to a Cisco facility. Do you still see people trying to cheat those exams as well?

Speaker 4:

You do, it's not as as many as the associate level. I mean it's a little bit easier. I mean because because those, those, those expert level exams, you can have maybe the topology of what you're trying to do, but you still have to know what the heck's going on, right? You there's not, because those are more hands on than just a, b, c and d, sure, so we see a lot less of that. But don't get me wrong. We've seen the exact topologies for some of our labs online, and that's when we have to go to the, the CCI engineers. Hey, we got to switch this up, we got to get some new, you know ways that we can, you know, change the topology here, because we've we found this online that was somehow extracted and we don't know how it happened. So it's a constant battle, man, but but. But, yeah, we see that too. It's not as much, but it is, it's there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, wow, that's. I mean it's shocking and it's not. I get it Like some people are just always going to try to cheat, but like to get to that level, the expert level, and try to and try to cheat.

Speaker 4:

It's what always blows my mind is the amount of time that people will spend to cheat is like you could just study for the freak.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I was kind of thinking of that earlier.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, really, so I know we um, I know we talked at length about the different ways that people can cheat, but I tell you this one, this one really just kind of blows my mind. The whole thought about proxy of people taking exams on behalf of somebody else. Now, I know you can't get into percentages, uh, or how often it really happens, but is this really a common problem?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I mean it goes back to. We collaborate with our, with our testing vendor, pearson view, and, and we can catch. Let's say that, uh, aj, aj takes his test, his CCMP, tomorrow, but he takes it from, um, you know, from Dubai, right, and, and, and, and, and and this system's triggered to say, well, hold on, aj lives in the United States, did? He flew to Dubai last night and just knocked out, he flew back home. So I mean, it's, it's things like that as we, we categorize as like evidence and if we can have multiple pieces of evidence of you know, aj was in Dubai and and he passed this exam. You know this way and answer these questions like this, and we found him on this website associated to this website. Like we tie all that together.

Speaker 4:

Um, but, you know, but proxy testing, yeah, it happens, we, you know, we see it from those kind of aspects to where you know they'll take the test for you or, um, the you know with. With online testing is a little bit more difficult because you actually have to provide your credentials and it's being like Pearson view actually is looking at the credentials and making the decision, but we see some fake IDs that come through to try to you know or we see. What's another cool story is I'm thinking as I'm talking is Pearson view. They actually have other vendors they work for it's not just Cisco, right? So they can actually see.

Speaker 4:

Well, they catch a proxy tester taking a AWS exam, they'll put them in the database and if he takes, if that guy takes a Cisco exam, you know, flag, um, so there's ways that we can catch those proxy testers. But yeah, it's, it's they'll. They'll try to do the best they can, but that's getting very more difficult than it was 10 years ago. That's a lot more like. There's just a lots of ways that we can catch the proxy tester now. But that's at one time that was kind of the number one way to get a certification was not taking yourself to have somebody take it for you.

Speaker 4:

Wow, yeah duplicate profiles like doing a lot of stuff in yes, yeah, it was wild.

Speaker 2:

You can't do the glasses and mustache disguise anymore.

Speaker 4:

They're gonna catch onto that pretty quick.

Speaker 2:

That's right, that's right.

Speaker 4:

So yeah, I mean fake registration pictures, I mean backgrounds, I mean you can tell us a fake photo. I mean, yes, yes, we've seen it all, but, like I said, if they just spend more time just trying not to cheat, they probably just passed exams.

Speaker 1:

So You've you've touched on a lot of different examples. Can you tell us like the silliest things you've ever seen or heard of people doing?

Speaker 4:

Yes, just just outright like the guy with the, the curtain guy, was my favorite Behind the curtain, like.

Speaker 1:

So was there somebody behind a curtain feeding the test taker Answers or trying to take?

Speaker 4:

pictures of. He could probably see through it enough to wear. You know, he could see the monitor, I guess, or he was doing something, I'm not sure why. To be honest, I don't know if they didn't think we could see him. One time we had we had somebody you know people just coming in the room and having no idea somebody's taking a test, like you know. They're just coming in with you know Drinks and stuff it's. We've seen some crazy stuff there, one guy Just kind of pretty crazy, but he was taking exam and we he wanted to use the restroom and we told him that if he did, his exam be canceled. So he just just let it go right. There Some of the stories then, because Pierceview sends us these reports and we kind of go back and review some of the video.

Speaker 4:

Yeah but we see, we see people who are taking the test and they'll have glasses on and you can see. Like you know, tim, if you, if you had a phone in front of you, I could see the reflection.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, those be cheating while taking the test. And you would. You would confront them. They've like, have no idea what you're talking about. I'm like I'm literally watching a video. You and the stories they try to tell you to the. You know the ways to get around the pill to let you know. Those are funny too. I wish I had some of those good appeals I've had about their wife would wouldn't talk to him for a month or something and Some crazy stories that we hear. It's please don't, please don't ban me. I know I did what's wrong, but we got you know. It's just zero tolerance for what we, what we catch, because if we let one person go, we would have to let everybody go.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, but yeah we've. We've come across some pretty pretty cool stories.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm always nervous about it because I'm always like super careful when I'm taking a test, because I like when I'm studying and if I'm doing practice tests, like, I will tend to Like just read out loud. It's just easier for me to read and comprehend if I'm actually and I'm not like talking, like, yeah, yelling in the room.

Speaker 2:

It's just, you know, it might be kind of over my under my breath or but you definitely see I'm a lip reading when I you can definitely see the lips move and it's like I've heard that Be an issue and in fact, they even will put that. And you mentioned, like the, the best practices and the do's and don'ts of the Test. Is it's like, do not read the questions out loud, we don't want to see your lips moving because who knows what what you could be doing.

Speaker 4:

So that's something I'm always really conscious about and look and though, and they'll give you multiple, multiple warnings Before the ax okay exam. I mean it's got it. Like I said, it's gonna be pretty egregious to shut it down, but just as suspicious eye movements you can, you can have your exam shut down. I mean you could be, I mean looking all over the screen, like why are you looking all over the screen? Or looking over here, like that just you're taking a test. It just looks kind of so, but it's like I said, it's got over a matter of time. It's got to be suspicious enough to where the proctor will say, okay, this is something's going on. I'm not sure let's shut this down, I so.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'll admit I've been yelled at while taking an exam at home. So I had I had a windows machine for work and, for whatever reason, I couldn't get that to fire up the test engine. It just wasn't working. So I ditched that, and then this is like Moments before I'm supposed to take my exam. So I grabbed my personal MacBook and I fire up, you know, the test engine. It's the first time I've ever taken it on my Mac. I had no idea what to expect. For whatever reason, the test engine, when it goes full screen, the text is like super small on the MacBook screen, it does not scale well, and so during the exam I'm like got my head.

Speaker 1:

Right up right up on the screen because I'm trying to read these tiny ass words and all of a sudden, here back up, I Can't see your full face. If, if you do that again, I'm gonna shut down your exam. Okay, sorry.

Speaker 2:

I'm sorry. Now you're just back there, just squintin.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah we've seen some, some crazy stuff. But yeah, like I said, it's just if it's egregious enough They'll shut it down, but most likely you'll be okay. It's yeah. Yeah, like, like, like Tim said earlier, this wasn't a scare tactic type con. I hope nobody took it that way. It's just we just want to let you know that you know if you do cheat or have prior knowledge or have a proxy tester, you know we're gonna catch you and that's good for the people that are doing this the right way. It's just protecting that investment. This is certification. You know it's pretty, you know it's holding the integrity of that and that's that's the whole point of what we do.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, I mean, I certainly appreciate what you do. You know there's a lot that goes into creating these exams, studying for these exams, and I just think about, like you know, trying to brain dump an entire question pool because you you never know, like, what questions you're gonna get. Every time you sit down you take that exam. I mean, I took the encore like three times before I passed it and it wasn't until that third time that I thought I saw maybe a couple of questions that I hadn't encountered on one of my Previous two attempts. Right Like so. I couldn't imagine trying to memorize 300, 400, 500, however many questions that are in the pool and try to expect to to be successful.

Speaker 2:

So you might as well just learn the shit Exactly.

Speaker 4:

Sometimes it's just easy, just to learn it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the technology you'll be better off in the long run anyway.

Speaker 1:

And then the, the proxy testing. That's something that I get hit up on LinkedIn quite a bit like oh hey, are you studying for a certification exam? Well, we can guarantee 100% test pass rate. And it's like, well, how do you do that? Well, we have somebody else take it for you. It's like, why, why would I do?

Speaker 1:

that Like that doesn't benefit me. I'm not gonna learn anything and at some point I'm gonna be expected to apply this knowledge that I said that I've learned. And if I can't do it, Well, that's not gonna go with.

Speaker 4:

And then you take ten seconds and just copy and paste and send an email to security dash tip line Dot-com is Cisco comm of who contact you on LinkedIn. And let us start that Investigation which could bring down the mothership of proxy.

Speaker 1:

It can be, now that I know that that Exists, you can guarantee I'm gonna. I'm gonna email you the next time.

Speaker 4:

Yes, yes, like I said, just one, one tip could, could bring down the whole entire you know fleet of so in some country, and all because of AJ's one email to us. I'm telling you we've had some big investigations. We've we've sued Cisco, sued test King comm for millions of dollars, and that's public knowledge.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, I've heard that name.

Speaker 4:

What so early on?

Speaker 1:

in my career there was a bunch of people that'd be like oh man, just go to test King and you like, you literally go to the website and it says like or well, you could go to the website at some point. Probably not now. It sounds like it was just like dumps. It said it right there dumps. I'm like no.

Speaker 4:

If they have it up there now, it's, it's not. It's not the same, it's like old content. It's like ours like old questions, because we have people that are monitoring that to make sure that they, you know, that's not copyrighted Cisco content on there, if it does?

Speaker 1:

they're in big trouble yeah.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, we got them. We got other websites too. So I mean it's, you know, it's just we're trying to one day we're gonna have a homeland hit and really final organization that is Into all this prior knowledge and proxy testing and we're really gonna make a dent. And we're getting there and we've got some investigation tactics and we've got ongoing investigations now, that some some in-person trainings and and and websites that we're looking at and Organizations of boot camps and it's. We got a lot of stuff going on, really cool stuff.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Well, I want to radiate to Everybody listening. This was not any sort of attempt to scare you.

Speaker 1:

We want you to continue to study for your Cisco certification exams and and you know, if you're studying user proper resources, you should feel just fine about what you're doing here. So study forum, take them. If you're not sure where you're getting your resources from or whether or not those resources are valid as, as Brent said, you can look up security-tip line at Cisco comm send your Resources on over and they'll tell you whether or not those are valid or or not. So you know you really shouldn't have any concerns walking into your next exam and and keep doing it. But but if you're doing some sketchy shit, we're on to you, cisco's on you.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, just just real quick to you know yeah, thanks for this platform. Guys, I mean we're always trying to, you know, get get out there, that that we have a dedicated team that are doing what we do every day and and coming up with new security measures, and we need the community's help as much as we. You know, it's what we do to to mitigate the cheating and hold that integrity. We just got back from Cisco live.

Speaker 4:

We had a, we had an exam session where, where people we kind of talk about some of the same things we talked about today and you should have seen that. You know the. The people were blown away of how, how we have a dedicated team and they were so glad they're like wow, I never knew that Cisco does this. So we're trying to get that more out there to let people know. I think that's a good thing. So, yeah, thanks for this opportunity to to be able to share that today.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's great to share what you guys are doing there to help protect the validity of the exams. We we totally understand you can't you can't show your hand right, like you can't tell us everything that you're doing to protect it, but it sounds like you're doing a lot of cool stuff and you're catching a lot of people and organizations that are, you know, in support of stuff like this. So we're happy to to share the story and we're glad you chose to spend some time with us. So thank you so much for joining us this evening any final questions, tim or thoughts Brent.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just, I mean, certifications in in these exams are Very much so front and center for a lot of people that are trying to Make their lives better. They put a lot of time and effort into this, so this is definitely a prevalent conversation and Really, to echo what Brent's been talking about this entire time, to bring it back home, it's about protecting the validity of the amount of time and knowledge that people gain and and again. To protect that to to make it valid and that people can't just come in or to knock down the Percentage of people that just come in and cheat to get the same thing that the other person spent so much time for. I think it's With more and more people, especially over these last few years, jumping into it from from other professions and other industries. This is becoming More and more of an important thing, and I'm sure it's. It's still a challenge, but it sounds like, brent, you and your team are really putting it, putting a dent into this and and Making this a forefront issue and in keeping these certifications valid.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a challenge but, like we say, we are trending in the right direction. We're seeing the numbers, we're seeing it in the feedback we're getting, we're seeing it from the community. It's just we got to keep just herring away Because, like I said, there's always going to be cheating, right there's, that's never gonna stop. There's nothing we can do is just say, hey, you know how can you stop cheating? But but we can do. We can, we can make it as difficult as possible and we can put things in place, that that that just Protects it a little, a little each time and it keeps getting better and better as we do it. So that's, that's the goal.

Speaker 1:

I love it. Brent. Is there any websites resources if people want to learn more about you or Cisco exam security? Are you on social media, anything like that? Any links that we can share with our audience?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, um, our, our Twitter handle is a Cisco exam security at. You know at, that's our at symbols Cisco exam security. So definitely reach out to us there. Obviously, our tip alias is the best. Just throw that out there. Security dash tip on at Cisco comm. We monitor that on a daily basis. That's the best way to contact us and if you need us, you can open cases with Cisco's Customer service team. If you have been case with them and just say you have exam security issue, it'll come directly to us too. But, yeah, just our LH is the best way. Open case with customer service. They'll get to us and yeah, and then the Cisco learning network that's a really good one. On Cisco's webpage. I'm sure you guys know Matt, matt Saunders and oh, yeah, we have villa in there and those are, those are great guys and they really help us protect that investment of the Certification to and we kind of that's a good place to go to if you have any questions. You know you sam's security related or just certifications related. That's that's. That's a great place awesome.

Speaker 1:

Are you yourself? Are you on Twitter at all?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, but not really for our exam. Our exam security tip line, or Cisco exam security, is our best Twitter handle.

Speaker 1:

Okay yeah, mom might be.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, not, not solely just Cisco. I'm a Duke fan, so I might have some Duke basketball stuff.

Speaker 2:

And hey, if you want to find AJ's secret recipe for guaranteed CCI passing dinners.

Speaker 1:

Check out.

Speaker 2:

AJ Murray cheat sheetscom.

Speaker 1:

I might have to go by that domain now. Awesome. Well, fred, thank you so much for joining us this evening and we will see you next time on another episode of the art of network engineering podcast. See you guys. Hey everyone, this is AJ. If you like what you heard today, then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher smash that bell icon. You get notified of all of our future episodes. Also, follow us on Twitter and Instagram. We are at art of net edge. That's art of net Eng. You can also find us on the web at art of network engineering calm, but we post all of our show notes. You can read blog articles from the co-hosts and guests and also a lot more news and Info from the networking world. Thanks for listening.

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