Top 5 Cyber Security Certifications for 2020

Are you looking to break into information security or maybe you're already in information security and you're looking to advance your career well in this article I'm going to go over my top five certifications for information security for the year 2020. So certifications are always an interesting discussion especially in information security and information technology there's so many different certifications and certification bodies out there it can be daunting to figure out which ones are in demand and which ones you should go for I'm going to go over  Top 5 Cyber Security Certifications that you should be looking at in the year 2020

At Number One in Top 5 Cyber Security Certifications is "Security plus" :  Security plus is from CompTIA. Now security plus is three hundred and thirty nine US dollars the thing with security plus is it's really seen as kind of an entry level certification for information security even though information security or cyber security isn't necessarily an entry level area of technology the questions are mainly multiple-choice you might also receive some performance based those are questions like drag-and-drop or select multiple things like that fill in the blank and if you're going to work in the defense industry or the government you're going to be required to have at least a security plus certification so it's actually a really good entry point as far as experience they recommend around two years experience for the exam but honestly you could pass it without any experience obviously the more you have the more it's going to help you but it's really meant for that entry into information security .

At Number Second in Top 5 Cyber Security Certifications is "CCSP " :

CCSP stands for the certified cloud security professional and that's from is c-squared cloud is obviously a big deal right now and is catching on everywhere you might be wondering well why am I not recommending something like an AWS from Amazon certification or a Microsoft as your certification or a Google certification well here's the thing with cloud it's really unclear where things are going and who is going to control the major market for example in networking you have Cisco who is the giant right they control a lot of the networking environment well in cloud there's not really that Dominator yet there's a lot of good services out there and they're still competing for who's going to be the front-runner so that's why I'm recommending the CCSP because it's a vendor neutral cloud certification and that will at least get you exposed to the ideas and concepts of cloud computing now there's a caveat to this in your current environment that you're in if you are using let's say AWS or a juror or Google then I would probably recommend you getting one of those certifications because it's something that you can actually start to use but one of the problems is that if you get an Amazon certification you're kind of committing down that path if you get a neutral certification then that shows your overall knowledge of cloud and you don't really have a bias towards one technology or another so when somebody reviews your resume they might look a little bit more favorable on that for the CCSP it requires five years experience and the cost is 599 US dollars so it's definitely a little bit more expensive than the copy of security plus.

At Number Third in Top 5 Cyber Security Certifications that I'm recommending is the "OSCP" : The Offensive Security Certified Professional and this is from offensive security now the OSCP is a different kind of beast compared to the other certifications basically what happens is you sign up for lab time and the lab prices start at $800 for 30 days access and you go through an entire course book you go through exercises and you actually have a whole bunch of machines that you can try to attack and get into and then the final exam is the same kind of way it's a practical exam but it lasts for 24 hours and you have to document everything that you've done how you got into systems it really mimics a real penetration test in that sense even though the OSCP is really focused on penetration testing it shows a lot of great knowledge the exam and the course is known for its motto which is try harder because the exam is not easy it is definitely a challenge.

At Number Four in Top 5 Cyber Security Certifications is "PMP": Project Management Professional and this is from the project management institute experience requirement is three years and you have to have lead projects during that three years the cost is anywhere from $400 to 550 dollars depending on if you're a member or not of the PMI now you might be saying why do I have a project management certification on here well think about this within information security and really information technology in general there are always changes that are happening new technologies new implementations there's a lot of moving parts that are going around a lot of projects and we need people that can help manage those projects and keep things on track and specifically within information security as there's more frameworks that are added that require a lot of different controls to be implemented we really need people that are helping to manage this a lot of times the technician or the engineer really focuses on the technical aspect of things but if they're in charge of a project they might let that execution slip a little bit so we really need people that are to help make projects a success.

At Number Five in Top 5 Cyber Security Certifications is "CISSP": The full name is Certified Information Systems Security professional now in information security this is the golden standard this is the major certification if you were to get one certification off this list this is the one that you would want to have now it requires five years of work experience and something to pay attention to is that the CompTIA security plus has no experience requirement the OSCP no experience requirement the C CSP has a five year experience requirement the PMP has a three year experience requirement and the SIS has a five year experience requirement so you can see some of these just naturally are challenging because you have to get that experience requirement you can't just take the exam and be good to go and that makes it challenging because you just have to have the time in grade there's no substitution but as far as the CISSP or the SIS like I said this is the golden standard there are so many jobs that want this certification it covers the entire gambit of information security things like software things like penetration testing and physical security all kinds of different stuff that most people don't have experience to everything they might have experience and a few of the domains but that is the ultimate certification.

Now are you ready for the bonus certification that I'm going to give you is the CISA (Certified Information System Auditor) and this is from ISACA now the reason why the CISA is so important is because it really focuses on risk management and auditing information systems the CISA cost is anywhere from 400 to 600 dollars depending on if you're a member or not think about all these different environments and needing to audit these systems we need people that are aware of how risk is managed and how to approach processes and technology and really find that risk so we can be even more secure.

You can do a little bit more research and find out what other certifications are important and maybe you choose to go a different path but based on what I've seen and what I know these are definitely really good ones to get and compared to a lot of other ones like the GIAC from SANS those cost a lot of money even though they're really valuable they're out of reach for a lot of people.
So with this way come to an end of this article thank you and wish you all a happy learning.

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