RE: A question about certification and training

I'd recommend getting as many of the CompTIA certs as you can (in between whatever you focus on for your career), right now they last forever and they are recognized by almost anyone in any industry their certs cover. They aren't hard (all are simply entry level), but it looks nice if you're going in for security job to have the Security+, as well as a Network+ (For knowing how the network works and relating it to security), A+ (same thing but for hardware/OS concerns), Server+ (Servers are a big aspect behind security concerns as you probably already know), and Linux+ (For that extra umph and the majority of the security related tools are not only better (in my experience, which is rather limited) but cheaper on Linux). All their tests are relatively cheap and most don't even require a full week of study to complete, yet they still look nice on the Resume.

As for other certs, try and focus on certs that relate to your career path. I know someone mentioned the CISSP, which I know next to nothing about, but some people here at work got a lot of out the SANs security certifications.

-----Original Message-----
From: Phillips, Mike [mailto:PhillipsMike@otc.army.mil] Sent: Friday, December 20, 2002 5:43 AM
To: 'security-basics@securityfocus.com'
Subject: A question about certification and training

Please accept my apologies if this is not the appropriate forum for this question..........

I am researching the relative value of various professional certifications in the IT field. Specifically for the security area, would anyone care to share their experiences or views on the certifications available in this area? The sub-set of questions is the following- 1. Which certifications are worth the time/effort/cost? 2. Which are not? 3. How do you quantify the value added of obtaining certifications?

Thanks in advance. Please feel free to respond to either myself or the group.

Michael C. Phillips
MSA, Inc., supporting U.S. Army Evaluation Center Whitfill Central Technical Support Facility Bldg 28 Ft Hood, Texas 76544

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