Cyber Security is a fast-growing area in the Information Technology industry and with the growing demand, it is good to get proper training or certification to prove your value to the industry and to improve your skills. Through this article, I’d be mentioning several courses and certifications that can keep you moving in the Information Security Industry.
OSCP (Offensive Security Certified Professional)
This is the first course/certification that comes to my mind while mentioning about cybersecurity courses. This is one of the main courses that any penetration tester in the industry would be looking for. This is more technical and even the registration needs an ability to bypass a few security measures.
OSCE (Offensive Security Certified Expert)
This certification is offered by Offensive Security (The creators of Kali Linux). This is considered as a virtual next step after taking on OSCP and primarily focuses on exploit development.
The cost for these 2 certifications and training are a bit on the upper side. But it has a massive value as those are not needed to be renewed and if you have one of these you will gain massive respect among the VAPT community.
https://www.offensive-security.com/ctp-syllabus/#pricing
CHFI (EC Council – Certified Hacking Forensics Investigator)
This certification/Training focuses on Forensics Investigations and the procedure to go about them. If you are willing to be a good forensics Investigator this must be on your bucket list as this is something which most of the organizations look for.
https://www.eccouncil.org/programs/computer-hacking-forensic-investigator-chfi/
CEH (EC Council- Certified Ethical hacker)
This is one another security certification from EC Council’s whole lot. This gives you a basic understanding on the basic cybersecurity and network security concepts.
https://www.eccouncil.org/programs/certified-ethical-hacker-ceh/
Cybrary
Cybrary provides free access to several training courses by different vendors. All these videos are completely free to access and there are good quality videos related to certifications such as CCNA, Penetration testing and many more.
CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional)
This is one of the certifications in which you need prior industry experience and has immense value within the industry. This is provided by (ISC)2 and specifically focuses on architecture, engineering, and management. To be precise this too can be considered as a non-technical training course/certification.
https://www.isc2.org/Certifications/CISSP
CISA (Certified Information Security Auditor)
This certification is an IT security governance-based certification/training. This is something good to have if you are looking to settle down in a more managerial/compliance-related position in the future.
http://www.isaca.org/CERTIFICATION/CISA-CERTIFIED-INFORMATION-SYSTEMS-AUDITOR/Pages/default.aspx
Network+ and Security +
This certification by CompTIA focuses on Network Security aspects of cybersecurity. This primarily focuses on Firewalls, managing network devices, virtualized networks and many more.
https://certification.comptia.org/certifications/network
This training certification Security+ is more of much like CEH which is delivered by EC Council. The curriculum of both is related to theoretical concepts of Cyber Security and Security+ specifically needs 2 years of experience in Network Support and IT administration.
https://certification.comptia.org/certifications/security
Training Course Series at e-learn Security
This provides a wide range of security certifications which ranges from a beginner to an advanced learner. They do offer course bundles as well. Even though most of the above are good, there is something special about these courses. The main reason being this does provide incomparable training and valuable certification. It is sad to say that though this is one of the best training courses going around not much of the IT companies do know about this.
https://www.elearnsecurity.com/course/
Except for this, there are some courses without certifications.
Learn Website Hacking / Penetration Testing From Scratch
This course is more technical with a hands-on approach for ethical Hacking. You would gain exposure to various penetration testing methodologies including reverse engineering, Network packet analysis and related to the most prevalent vulnerability types including SQL Injections, Cross-Site Scripting attacks and many more. But as Rome was not built in a day this includes 94 hours for you to go through.
https://www.udemy.com/course/learn-website-hacking-penetration-testing-from-scratch/
There are a few other easily accessible courses that are provided by different organizations. They do provide a high-level understanding of the concepts that can be utilized in cybersecurity. Some of these courses can be found at https://www.computersecuritystudent.com. Here are a number of courses in domains like Governance/Risk/Compliance, Penetration Testing, Reverse Engineering and even as training courses for a various number of popular certifications.
If you are looking for a start with information security for your organization. The course “Security Awareness Training, Internet Security for Employees” (https://www.udemy.com/security-awareness-training-internet-security-for-everyone/) would provide a concise approach to it. These courses are well organized by the security professionals such that anyone with a basic, Beginner level understanding can follow them.
There are plenty of other training courses and certifications online, specifically in Udemy you can find a lot of certifications with some pretty good content. But here we have mentioned some of the most recognized certifications/training all around the world.
All these 10 certifications/training would be prioritized based on the skill or the designation of the person who is taking the training. But there is something to be kept in mind. Most of these certifications do have a date of expiry, therefore it becomes needed to renew them before the period expires as most of the content becomes continuously updated.
There is one another resource that I utilized to get more in-depth knowledge. You can visit Pentester Academy via “https://www.pentesteracademy.com/topics ”. The specialty here is that you are getting a badge for each of the milestones that you achieve, and the content is pretty organized as well. They do have a free of charge video tutorial series at “http://www.securitytube.net ”. Therefore even if you do not have any money to pay for the courses it is always possible to do some practical hands-on labs via the video tutorials provided.
For some of the certifications/training, it is possible to find vouchers online, therefore it would reduce the burden considerably to be borne by your shoulders.