Coffee with CyberFrat – June 2019
- CyberFrat
- July 28, 2019
Discussion Date: Sunday, 2nd June 2019
Time: 10:30 AM Onwards
Coffee With CyberFrat is a program initiated with an intent to aid in the local networking of cyber professionals and students aspiring to build a career in the cyber industry.
The basic funda of CWC is, the CF volunteers in different cities decide a venue and timing for the meet. This meet is open for anyone and everyone irrespective of their professional background. Further, a topic is decided to be discussed which is same for the meets in all cities. Everyone brings their thoughts and opinions to the table while sipping coffee which is paid individually.
On 2nd June 2019, Coffee With CyberFrat was held at 5 different locations and was a grand success. The topic decided for this meet was IMPORTANCE OF INFOSEC CERTIFICATIONS.
The outcome of the meets that happened in different cities of India is summarized below.
The discussions started with participants sharing their insights on the importance of information security certifications and how they are helpful in career growth for an individual. The discussion zeroed around basically four aspects which were central to the agenda.
These are as follows:
- Role of certifications in information security career growth
- Preparation Strategy for Information Security certifications
- Pitfalls to avoid after you successfully pass the certification
- Best practices to reinforce learning after passing certification exam
These points are summarized below.
A credential in effect shows candidate’s significant commitment to the job profile in information security field.
- Typically, an InfoSec credential is backed by an active Security community such as ISACA, ISC2, SANS Offensive Security etc. This gives a brand recognition to an individual which in turn leads to better career opportunities for him / her.
- All well-known InfoSec certifications come with a pledge of ethical usage behavior from the candidate.
- So in case there are provable reports of malpractice from a candidate, the credential gets revoked by the governing body immediately.
- This leads to higher assurance from client’s end.
Within a company, this may lead to quicker job promotion or first preference to work on a new environment / technology if a person is certified on that technology.
- As a result, chances of receiving a better pay increases a lot once the candidate is certified.
External factors such as regulatory or industry standard(s) might mandate and insist on sending only certified candidate as a qualifying requirement for a particular job role.
- This in turn, pushes the companies to aggressively get their employees certified.
Better client assurance on work quality can be given hence client is comfortable to pay more the company if they send certified professionals.
- This translates to a win-win for both the client and vendors.
This may offer a vendor or service provider an edge over the competition.
- This may happen because the client may give preference to a company which employs certified employees when compared to its closest competitor.
- For an InfoSec professional who is active as a freelancer, having credentials is always better as this attract new young companies
- These young companies may not have sufficient budget to approach established companies for completing required information security compliance activities.
- However, they may very well afford a seasoned certified InfoSec professional to help them to get compliant w.r.t information security.
Knowledge based certifications (CISA, CISSP, etc.):
- Study the basics and prepare well
- Do lots of practice questions
- Better learning can happen via study aids, group studies with peers
- Test your learning and accuracy via Mock tests
- Learn to manage time better as there is limited time to answer questions.
Skill based certifications (OSCP etc.):
- Learn and understand the basic concepts well
- Do the test practice first on labs to reinforce the concepts
- Heavily practice on stimulated labs before attempting live exam
- Manage your time well, prepare necessary documentation as you move forward.
- No need to indulge in bragging about successful certification. Stay grounded and humble.
- Stay calm and focused. You may have completed an important milestone, but your career journey is still happening.
- Don’t become arrogant and start behaving snobbishly around your peers.
- People are less likely to work or get along smoothly with a knowledgeable but arrogant person.
- Try implementing some of the ideas in your company which you learned while pursuing certification.
- You will get to know the real-life challenges and how to overcome them during implementation phase itself.
- Offer to help your colleagues facing in any implementation challenge w.r.t InfoSec.
- Knowledge and skills only get better by sharing it with others.
- Don’t hesitate to share your exam experience and things you could have done better during examination preparation with your colleagues.
- Your respect and confidence will only increase among peers.
- Keep learning and share your knowledge freely among peers.
- You will eventually win people trust and confidence which will catapult you to new career heights in future.
Other key points identified during the discussion, which are important when the focus falls onto information security certifications are as follows.
You need certification when you don’t know Information Security and you don’t need it when you know Information Security
This means, if you possess experience in InfoSec, certification may not be mandatory as you already have practical experience. However, for a fresher to enter into the industry, you need to have a certification to be eligible for the profile.
Top of Security is risk management
However, it gets detached from Security as it focuses more on management of risk Security.
There is no generic certification which satisfies all the criteria required. Thus, an individual ends up being perplexed, which certification needs to be completed in order to be eligible for a job opportunity,
Certain companies prioritize skills and experience over certifications for example if a candidate can demonstrate skills of ethical hacking, it does not matter if he/she possess certification.
As the digital era is expanding enormously, students would be inclined to work in security domain. Thus, to have an eligibility criterion and have a basic segregation of candidates, certification would be required.
Having a certificate is quite important but on the other hand people in the industry with considerable years of experience who possess knowledge as well as skills cannot be neglected over having no certification.
CEH is considered as an entry level certification and expecting a candidate with CEH certification to have skills of higher level would not be fair.
No up to the mark certifications for cyber investigation
Scarcity of Good trainers
CISOs ignore maintaining certifications and lack experience of business management
CEH is a good entry point into the Information Security industry
CISSP can be considered as a relevant and useful certification for team members
CISM and CISM are good from industry perspective if you are leading a team
Udemy, Cybrary, Hack the box, Pluralsight, Project Drona, Corsera are good websites for learning free learning.
CISM is fully defensive
CEH and OSCP can be considered as entry level certifications. CEH is objective exam while OSCP is hands on approach offensive security exam.
COFFEE WITH CYBERFRAT PARTICIPANTS
BANGALORE: Pooja Bagga, Vivek Verma
Starbucks Coffee House, Ground Floor, 115, Road Opposite Raheja Arcade, Koramangala
DELHI: Priyanka Tomar, Prem Gurnani, Nakul, Akshat
Cafe Coffee Day The Square, 46, Janpath Rd, Atul Grove Road, Janpath, Connaught Place
NASHIK: SaiPrasad Kulkarni, Amol Patwardhan, Mohit Bagul, CA Amit Sharma, Saujas Jadhav
Café Coffee Day – Mahatma Nagar, Parijat Nagar, Ramrajya Building
MUMBAI: Gaurav Batra, Pooja Kadam, Ritesh Bhatia, Smith Gonsalves, Anirban Roychowdhury, Nikhil Talwar, Sameer Saxena, Amaresh Rajvedi, Sunil Sharma
Coffee By Di Bella Exclusive Link Road, Ground Floor. Kiran Kunj, 24th Road, Off Linking Rd, Opposite elbo room, Khar West
PUNE: Manasdeep, Yogesh Mishra
Irani Café, World Trade Center, Dholepatil Farms Rd, EON Free Zone, Kharadi.
