Decline of the CISSP?

I was curious what everyone thought about this graphic. According to Google Trends, this chart shows the measure of relative popularity of a search term over time. By this measure, the CISSP has been heading down over the last decade.

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Comments

titsmcgee

The CISSP is and will always be the gold standard. Until you find me a more well-known, well-respected certification, the CISSP holds the crown. Stop getting caught up in blog posts and opinions, the fact of the matter is that many high-level jobs still require you to have CISSP. There is no alternative exam that covers the entire mile the way CISSP does.

CISSP is not for the forensics expert, or the engineer, it is for the strategy-focused security individual. It provides foundational knowledge of all aspects in IT. Many of the people complaining about the CISSP are the expert engineers who've been taught about the CISSP their entire career only to discover that it is not as technical as they would've liked it to be, but thats why SANS and other technical certs exist. Two completely different career paths.

I'd even argue that the CISSP is very beneficial to even the most advanced engineers in the field. Many security engineers may be subject matter experts in a specialized role, and have little knowledge of the entire spectrum. Especially in large companies and in the government.

cyberguypr

The only thing declining CISSP related may be searches. Possibly because more people know about it? I don't know.

The CISSP member counts tell a different story:
2015 - 105705
2014 - 96308
2013 - 90199
2012 - 80596

Those numbers paired with the fact that there is no single InfoSec related cert that's as pervasive as this one would lead anyone to conclude there's no indication of it being declining.

havoc64

I really doubt the CISSP is in Decline. What I do find is that there are a lot more IT certifications out that that do not require the amount of experience and knowledge as the CISSP does. So more people are looking at them. Also I would venture that the great majority of HR departments know what a CISSP is, so they don't have to google it..but when someone comes in with a TCNA or a ISSAP then they have to google it.

dustervoice

Everyone knows what CISSP is. All other certs are just "nice to have" or additional pad for a CV. The only time the CISSP will decline is when ISC2 no longer cares about the integrity of the cert which i dont see happening anytime soon and by integrity i mean valid **** become available.

jayc71

While I wouldn't call it a decline, I would say that there has been a delusion of the CISSP since the government mandated it for all privileged access IT positions. This caused a huge influx of govt employees and contractors who were required to have the cert and who attended classes with the express intend of "teaching the exam" rather than producing competent security professionals.

zxbane

Justin,

Can you cite where the CISSP and only the CISSP qualifies for priv. access?

Remedymp

zxbane wrote: »

Justin,

Can you cite where the CISSP and only the CISSP qualifies for priv. access?

He's not saying they verbally said this, he's saying the role (such as Ed. Snowden) requires you to be CISSP either within 30 days or at the time of hire. Ironically, Snowden was CISSP as well.