Re: regaridng security certifications

[Adam Jones <ajones1 () gmail com>]

On 11/30/05, Amol Chaudhari <avchaudhari () gmail com> wrote:
> Hello All,
>    I am a beginner in security field and i want to make my career in this field.
> i have completed my bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering and
> right now working on EJBs and xsl, xml, javascript as a product
> engineer.
> so for entering security field i am planning to do few cerifications.
> and to start with i am planning for brainbench's internet security and
> network security certifications. after that i am planning to do GSEC.
>   i searched for books and resources for brainbench certifications,
> but unable to get any info.
> can anybody help on this?

Any particular reason you are looking at the brainbench cert? Up until
reading your post a few seconds ago I had never heard of it. Granted I
am no expert or anything, but I did spend a lot of time looking at
certifications and it never came up.

What I can suggest for you is this:

1) Look very closely at how credible a certification is. If no one has
ever heard of it, or it is really easy to get, you are just wasting
money. Certifications do not teach anything, the tell other people
what you have learned. If they cannot do that reliably there is no
point.

2) Try to get the highest score possible on a certification. I have
not heard of any that make mention of the scores someone recieved on
any formal documentation, but by having the certification you will be
expected to know what it covers. Barely passing a certification exam
is possibly worse than failing it, especially if you are weak in only
one topic, as now you will be expected to know something you really
did not.

3) Consider studying for other types of exams. Although you may not
want to spend the money to get an certification outside of the
security field, learning the topics they cover can be useful for
security. Obvious ones here are the networking certs and the OS based
ones for whatever operating system you are interested in.

> thanks in advance.
> Regards,
> Amol.
> (INDIA)