Certification Roadmap

So after my post the other day, I started thinking long and hard about where I want to go professionally, specifically in regards to the vehicle of which certs to focus on to get there. After that process here is my plan (for those that care :))

I'm finally going to schedule my GPEN for the 18th of next month. My next goal is to obtain my CISSP by the end of the year. There is an exam time being held in Atlanta on December 19th. My goal will be to get it at that time. I will probably take some time off from then until the end of the year. Starting Jan. 1st of next year, I am going to focus on getting the GSEC certification. Following that, GCIA, then finally GCIH. I would like to have all of those three done by June of next year. The reason being is that I would like to have two gold papers done for two of those certifcations by the following summer so I can shoot for the GSE.

Why the timeline? Well you have a time limit of 6 months for each of your gold papers. This gives me the full 6 months even if I can finish them early. Why do the gold papers? The simple answer is that they are prerequisites for the GSE certification. For those of you that are not familiar with the GSE, the exam is only held once a year. At this time there are only 13 people with this certification. It is a rigorous process. After the prerequisites and acceptance to take the lab exam the process includes a multiple choice exam covering a wide variety of topics, much like the other GIAC exams. The second is a two day hands on lab. The lab consists of a rigorous battery of hands on exercises drawn from a large range of security domains. The second day consists of on Incident Response Scenario that requires the candidate to analyze data and report their results in a written incident report as well as an oral report.

In short it covers the following skillset:

• General security skills
• Incident handling skills
• Intrusion detection and analysis skills

On the journey I go! It will be a long process but I hope to learn a lot and to possibly set myself a little outside of the pack in the quickly filling security field. I welcome any and all study partners that may have the same or similar goals. Group study is much better than personal study. I will probably start a website and mailing list much like GroupStudy but security focused. Keep your eye out or email me for more information on that.