Secure With Your Security Pros

With the increased demand for IT security professionals comes a call for more security skills certifications. Here's a look at the top one and what it will do for your career.

By Deborah Radcliff

August 21, 2000 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - First came ISACA. Then came CISSP. And now there's GCIA, GCFA and CCFT. We're talking security certifications here - dating back to the 1980s, when the best gig in town was the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA).

As the mainframe gave way to client/server computing, the Certification Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) was born. The CISSP is now the most common security certification sought by employers looking for security managers, vice presidents and chief security officers.

But over the past six months, security certifications have started to specialize into subset areas, including firewalls, intrusion detection and computer investigative forensics.

			Resources www.isaca.org - The Information Systems Audit and Control Association and Foundation www.isc2.org - International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium Inc. www.sans.org - The SANS Institute's course schedule for: GCIA - GIAC Certified Intrusion Detection Analyst GCFA - GIAC Certified Firewall Analyst GCIX - GIAC Certified Unix Analyst GCNT - GIAC Certified NT Analyst www.htcn.org - The High Tech Crimes Network Certifications include: CNSP - Certified Network Security Professional CCFT - Certified Computer Forensic Technician CCCI - Certified Computer Crime Investigator CCCP - Certified Computer Crime Prosecutor CCCA - Certified Computer Crime Attorney

Such is the path Rob Paszko took - at least up to the CISSP level.

Now, Paszko, an incident response and vulnerability manager at Du Pont Co. in Wilmington, Del., says he's curious about the latest certifications.

Paszko says the new certifications are complementary to the coveted CISSP because they fill a need for hands-on information security professionals in specialty areas.

"There will be specialists and general practitioners in information security departments. I consider myself a general practitioner," he says.

The CISSP, say Paszko and others, falls more into the "security generalist" category. The certification requires high-level proficiency or knowledge in everything from public-key infrastructures (PKI) to telecommunications security to disaster recovery and physical security.

The CISSP, which costs $450 to sit for the exam, has long been a requirement for senior-level government security practitioners.

And for the past two years, CISSP certifications have also made top-level security professionals much more marketable in the private sector, says Tracy Lenzner of Lenzner and Associates, a security headhunting firm in Las Vegas.

Other Certifications

With only 3,000 CISSP certification holders, generalized CISSPs aren't so easy to find, according to Lenzner. So in the interim, employers also consider other certifications, such as Redwood City, Calif.-based Check Point Software Technologies Ltd.'s Firewall-1 and San Jose-based Cisco Systems Inc.'s Pix Firewall certifications. They also look for Plano, Texas-based Entrust Technologies

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