Signed up for the SANS 502 GIAC Certified Firewall Analyst (GCFW) course just now

dynamik

I actually received the approval for my GPEN Gold paper on my way home from work today. I'm fairly excited, considering there are less than 1000 GPENs and only 7 are Gold. It's really interesting that there are only 400 more GCFWs but almost 600 of the total are Gold. I guess the other GPENs need to pick up the pace

I also submitted a proposal for a Gold in GSEC today. The GPEN Gold will focus on constructing a virtualized penetration testing lab while the GSEC Gold will cover developing foundation-level information security knowledge to be a successful professional penetration tester (if that proposal is accepted).

Paul Boz

I also received a response (same day, not three weeks later, suck it Dynamik) but it turns out that someone has written a paper almost exactly on what I intended to do mine on. That being said, I proposed a new subject that I'm fairly sure no one has covered. Hopefully they get back to me tomorrow so I can start.

you really pointed out my biggest problem man. There are like a million times more golds for the GCFW than for the GPEN so picking a subject at this point in the game is pretty dang tough. I don't want to write a lame paper on some obscure subject just because all of the good topics have been taken. I wish "just let me write on the same subject, I'm sure my paper will be better" was a valid response

dynamik

Weird. I guess it takes a lot longer to find an adviser than it does to simply reply with "no"

Unfortunately, there are a lot of Golds for the IH and IA as well

GWAPT would be nice, considering there are currently zero.

Paul Boz

Hahahaha suck it even harder - I responded to that email at like 11:20 and got a response at 11:30 saying that both subjects would be acceptable to write on but that my new subject would be even better. I got a full dialogue going in one day. Did you send your initial request on the leg of a pidgin?

Paul Boz

what like eight hours from proposal to acceptance?

Congratulations!

Your GCFW Gold application has been accepted. Please log into the GIAC Exam Engine at https://exams.giac.org and click on the "Gold Applications" link, to access your Gold application and proceed with payment. You will be assigned an adviser and have 6 months to complete the Gold process, once your payment has been received.

If you have any questions at this time, please email exam-support@giac.org for assistance.

The SANS Institute
8120 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 205
Bethesda, MD 20814 US

dynamik

Ouch

I'm curious to see how long my GSEC takes to get approved.

I wonder if you got preference since you're a mentor?

Paul Boz

I just updated our blog with the ground work for the GIAC gold paper attempt. I'll be chronicling the entire attempt over the next few months.