A brief review of the ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity (CC) certification..
Certified in Cybersecurity (CC)
Difficulty: Easy
Type: Entry-level / Foundational knowledge
Link: https://www.isc2.org/certifications/cc
Pricing: Free (50$ ISC2 membership fee after course and exam)
Certified in Cybersecurity (CC) is a new and free entry-level certification from ISC2 (International Information System Security Certification Consortium) whom is also behind the popular CISSP cert.
I stumbled across this certification by talking to a friend who took it a few weeks back. The word “free” got stuck in my head, and i thought “How bad can it be?”. I found out that ISC2 has pledged one million FREE ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity courses and exams as part of their “commitment to help close the cybersecurity workforce gap and diversify those working in the field”
How very nice of them..👏
So i went to their website, and followed these instructions:
Start Your Journey
To participate in the One Million Certified in Cybersecurity program, please follow these simple steps:
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Create an account. If you already have an ISC2 account, sign in.
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Complete your ISC2 Candidate application form and select Certified in Cybersecurity as your certification of interest.
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Once the application is complete, you’ll become an ISC2 Candidate. It’s free to join and you’ll gain access to Official ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity Online Self-Paced Training and a code to register for the free certification exam. You will find your access on the Candidate Benefits page.
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Upon passing the exam, complete the application form and pay U.S. $50 Annual Maintenance Fee (AMF). Once completed you’ll become a certified member of ISC2 – the world’s largest association of certified cybersecurity professionals – with access to a broad range of professional development resources to help you throughout your career.
Course contents
The course consists of five main Domains. Each domain consists of a number of topics, with Domain 2 (IR, BC, DR) having 28 topics and Network security having 64, being the most time consuming of the bunch.
Domain 1. Security Principles (51 topics)
Domain 2. Business Continuity (BC), Disaster Recovery (DR) & Incident Response Concepts (28 topics)
Domain 3. Access Controls Concepts (36 topics)
Domain 4. Network Security (64 topics)
Domain 5. Security Operations (32 topics)
CISSP Lite?
The course touches important concepts, technologies, procedures and regulatory knowledge that any cybersecurity specialist or manager should know about. Even though i haven’t taken the CISSP, taking this makes me think that this is just a CISSP Lite.
I went through the course in maybe five or six hours. Overall it was good and well structured, although some of the videos i skipped because they got a bit cringy and i got tired of some of the analogies they used.
The exam
You have to take the exam at a physical location at one of Pearson VUE’s test centers.
You have 2 hours to answer 100 questions, which should be more that enough. I finished it in less than 50 minutes.
ISC2 does not give you a score at the end, you just get a note saying that you have “provisionally passed”, which means that you have to create an account on their site if you don’t already have one, agree to their code of ethics and pay $50 for your first year’s membership. You can then print your certification from your profile page. Don’t worry, you will get an email after the exam, telling you exactly what to do.
Conclusion
IMO this is a really good entry-level certification that can work as a brush up course or as a career starter for people. ISC2 is also a very renowned and respected association with more than 500.000 members. Aaaaaaand its FREE! So what’s not to like?