Info Security certificate

Im about to go to collage to take a certificate course in information security, so i was hoping if anyone here has one or is a security guy for some company if they could tell me anything like whats the pay, whould people hire me if i dont have a degree but i will have the certifiction to do the job. anyways thanks for any help you can give.

I relize now that most people on this site are on the other end of info security :) or too young to be going to collage and thats great learn while your young im only 20 and i feel like im behind the pack beucse there is so much to learn so good luck

Just don't depend on Cisco certifications and you're fine. I know the money looks daunting, but hardly any companies want multiple-cisco certified employees because guess what hardware/software they know how to operate?

Anyways, depends on what type of certification you are going for to have a degree or not. Like, if you had your CISSP you're in very much luck. But, this is the highest/hardest certification i know of. As it sounds like you're a bit new to the security field, do NOT waste your money on this one until you've got a couple of years under your belt.

You want to start with Security+, then CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker). If you can pass these with no problem, then you can move on to the more intermediate stuff and go on from there.

Here's a good link for more certifications that might be of interest (make sure you can do security+ and CEH, though): http://www.giac.org/certifications/

More info can be founded, here: http://www.cccure.org/

Good luck to you in the future, soon i'll be having to do these. The practice exams are fairly easy for most of them ;).

thanks for the advice. I have e-mailed the school to request moreinformation before i do anything, i do know that there are some prerequisite classes i have to take befor i can enroll in this program but here are the classes i will have to take.

First Semester Course No. Course Title Credit Hrs. NIS 250 Introduction to Security 4

	                                                                        Total	4

Second Semester Course No. Course Title Credit Hrs. IT 252 Introduction to Security 4 IT 254 Firewalls and Perimeter Defense 4 Security Elective 3

	Total	11
		
	Grand Total	15

Security Electives
Course Prefix Course Number Course Title Credit Hours IT 255 Computer Forensics 3 IT 256 UNIX/LINUX Operating System Security 3 IT 258 Windows Operating System Security 3 IT 259 Selected Topics in Information Security 3 NIS 245 Designing a Secure Windows Network Topic: 3

Getting the degree might be a better option but the fact that i hate school makes this sound better. Anyways thanks again and i will let you know more when i get the info.

Ew, can't you take placement tests for those? Those all sound like extremely boring & easy classes, except for forensics.

Are you going to a university? If so, make SURE you apply everything to a live situation. Private schools usually have hands-on stations to apply the skills, but Universities just drone on.

If you don't, you're more than likely to be confused at a bash prompt, if you know what i mean.

Im not to sure about placement test but like i said im waiting on more info from the school and i was planning on using this certifcation to help get an entry level job and once i get some money to afford more classes i can take corses to get more certifaction or get a degree

Hell, if you have money or a sponsor (like your company) that's willing to pay $4-5k, then I'd really suggest going to a CEH training camp which is for about 5 days of all day hands on labs that'll teach ya quite a few things. InfoSec institute (I forget their domain name, just google it), offers quite a long list that they'll teach ya. After the 5 day session (you stay the night in a hotel, learn from 9am to 5pm, then 5-10pm you play capture the flag hacking games etc), then you get to take the actual CEH test for free. I'll probably be doing it within the next year or so for sure, but I'm only a junior in high school and I gotta save some money.

That sounds great but no money and no sponser :( so im S.O.L but like i said if everything cheecks out with this certifcation course than i can get a job and get more advanced stuff later. and thanks for all the help guys

Onyx_Ghost wrote: That sounds great but no money and no sponser :( so im S.O.L but like i said if everything cheecks out with this certifcation course than i can get a job and get more advanced stuff later. and thanks for all the help guys

That's how you should do it. The more experience on the job means better/more job opportunities/more knowledge to put forth into those certification tests. As i'm currently aware, a lot of these tests are hands-on. So, you can't guess, which is good for a f*cking security job :p.