Network Security as a Career

I'm really obsessed on pursuing a career as a network security guy.
I study networks, actually studied because I'm graduating next Saturday. And I really love it. I also am an Administrator of Infowar.com, moderator of the Security Forums and moderator at criticalsecurity.net.
I can't deny that I'm a hacker and love being one. The self study and long nights researching helped me to developed a good knowledge of security.
Now, I was planning on taking CEH and other security certs that I don't know.
So, I'm here asking:
What are good security certs to take and if all this time I spent learning how to hack will help me on those certs?
Sometimes when you study by your own and not really having a specific topic to learn (like objectives for certs) might lead you in a way that will just prejudice your way up regarding pursuiing a security cert.
Thanks in advance.

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Comments

keatron

Well, the term hacker has many different meanings. Being a security consultant can be a very lucrative career (that's what I'm doing most days when not training). Go ahead and start researching C|EH, CISSP, SSCP, SANS certs, Forensics certs, and others. Find out the requirements and subject matter (this information is easily obtainable by simply spending a little time on google). Find out if it's really for you. As I've pointed out to people many times before, a large part of being a "network/systems security guy" can be boring. All it will take is for you to spend one 12 hour night combing through random logs, and you'll see exactly what I mean. But on the other hand, some parts of it are just down right exciting. Now even though I don't have any Cisco certs, I'd definitely add CCSP and CCIE /s to my wish list. You can rarely go wrong with any form of Cisco knowledge. So I would say to name a few, CISSP, CCIE /s, CISA, SSCP, C|EH, some of the SANS stuff, CHFI, and one of the most valuable and most honest tests of subject matter knowledge....CWSP.

Good luck.

Good luck.

gabrielbtoledo

keatron: Thank you very much for your reply.
I knew Security+, CEH, CCIE and CISSP. I've heard from others that CCIE is the top level and most difficult one and CISSP is one below CCIE. Just what I heard.
I will sure do my research and I know that looking through logs it's not that fun.

P.S. You right about the hacker definition and I won't argue with you about. I've tried to avoid questions like that on the sites I moderate. But I won't get in details, because Hollywood and the media seem that don't know what they are talking about twisting things around.