Re: PWB - OSCP certification for newbies

[Hari Sekhon <hpsekhon () googlemail com>]

Mau Bs wrote:
> Hi.
> I've been following both mailing lists for quite a while, and lately
> I've seen many people suggest the offensive-security certification
> Pentesting with Backtrack as a good place to start for learning some
> basic skills in pentesting. I would like to know how you feel about
> this suggestion. Also for you guys that have taken the course, what do
> you consider is the minimum skill set needed to get the most of the
> course/cert. I'm coursing my last year of my degree in Computer
> Science.

If you're only doing a degree then this may go above your head, it's 
really aimed at more experienced professionals with a few years 
experience (and even then they often fail it). They do not explain basic 
things - you are expected to know them already and they assume that you 
have worked in IT for at least a few years and already have knowledge of 
multiple operating systems, networking, programming, databases, some 
security etc etc.

I'd say it's best for people already working in security really. I don't 
see there being enough of a future market to invest in this now as 
technology is basically closing all the holes as well as preventing the 
need for any more people to run IT (and there are a tonne of unemployed 
IT people with experience still looking for jobs that are also finding 
that IT's shrinking job market in the long term is causing them problems).

Yes I have an OSCP and yes it was tough as suggested. It actually put me 
off doing pentesting any more (although also because I had done enough 
of this I felt) as well as the fact that I am enjoying other aspects of 
IT more these days, they're less sleep deprived and hair-pulling 
(although after 5 years in IT I have no hair left to speak of anyway!  
;-) ).

-h

--
Hari Sekhon
http://www.linkedin.com/in/harisekhon


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