InfoSec Institute now Offering GIAC Courses

So, I log into TechExams and see that InfoSec Institute is now offering GIAC exams.

Of course I didn't click on the link, I went straight to the website through google.

After making up all of the information they requested, I got the price.

GPEN 5-day tuition
Included

GPEN Boot Camp all-in-one textbook
Included

GPEN sample exam questions
Included

GPEN exam voucher
Included

Pre-shipment of textbook
Included

InfoSec Flex video archive of course you attended
Included

InfoSec Flex detailed reporting on exam readiness
Included

Total
$8,189.00

Standard Discount
$1,890.00

Your Total
$6,299.00

1. Thanks for the discount.
2. Thanks for the laugh.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

TechGromit

Hmm, if this is true, they cut out a day of training, normally SANS course are 6 days not 5. Guess there's no capture the flag event day to apply what you learned. The normal price is $6,210, but I've seen discounts as much a $400, that brings you down to $5,810 then the Exam voucher is $729, so that a total of $6,539. So $6,299 is actually cheaper, but your losing a entire day of training. To be fair it's usually not a full day, most classes are done by 2pm on the last day.

cyberguypr

I saw this the other day and am wondering if this is some sort of partnership with SANS or they are just deconstructing the exam blueprint and teching based off that.

supasecuritybro

yeah I am pretty sure SANS doesn't need partners to reach more a wider client base. I am assuming that they just went ahead and worked on something.

Peters, Jeff

The prices for our GIAC® courses include a variety of additional features that SANS charges additional fees for, including:

The exam (as TechGromit noted)
Recordings of daily lessons
Labs, which come with immediate and extended access

That adds up to a nearly 40% discount for some of our GIAC training courses. Live Online students get 90-day access to their recordings and six months of access to labs. We also run evening sessions with optional study groups and lab activities so that we can pack all of the training into a 5-day session and keep it during the workweek for students.

Happy to answer any questions you have as I'm assisting with the rollout of the new InfoSec Institute courses.

TechGuru80

You get MP3s of any course you attend, and you get a usb drive with images to complete the course labs...all included with the course, not for an additional charge.

The cost of the courses are roughly the same, not considering if you go to a live event...but if you don’t attend an official SANS course, you won’t get the official courseware on which the exams are created. Perhaps if you charged no more than half the cost it might be a reasonable consideration, but then you are competing against the work study program.

The short version....This course isn’t worth it.

cyberguypr

I'm really trying to see the value proposition here. Who is giving the courses? Joe blow from the street or hardcore "been there done that" security practitioners? To me some of the biggest value comes from the caliber of SANS trainers, so there's that.

johndoee

johndoee wrote: »

So, I log into TechExams and see that InfoSec Institute is now offering GIAC exams.

Of course I didn't click on the link, I went straight to the website through google.

After making up all of the information they requested, I got the price.
Here is my take--

GPEN 5-day tuition The course can be 5 days, 4 days, or 9 days. The length of the course is kinda not relevant.
Included

GPEN Boot Camp all-in-one textbook Half the people on this GIAC/SANS forum that have a GIAC cert of two could write a textbook. For the right amount of money I will write a textbook. Send message to DM with figures XXX, XXX <-
Included

GPEN sample exam questions A 12 grade hacker could write penetration testing exam questions. That is of no significant value either.
Included

GPEN exam voucher ANYBODY can buy a voucher without the course materials. Nobody needs you to purchase a voucher for them.
Included

Pre-shipment of textbook You will ship us some books. Oh great. It is 12 penetration testing books on Amazon relevant to the GPEN exam. I could probably use 3 of them and create an index and pass.
Included

InfoSec Flex video archive of course you attended It's enough
free videos online I can view with only an email address and password I created.
Included

InfoSec Flex detailed reporting on exam readiness Who are you to judge the exam readiness? Well, if you are the judge of readiness..Why don't you offer a money back guarantee if you judge someone to be ready and they fail!
Included

Total
$8,189.00

Standard Discount
$1,890.00

Your Total
$6,299.00 LOL

1. Thanks for the discount.
2. Thanks for the laugh.

Young Grass Hop-e-rss

Here is a tip. If I want to sell you something and want you to jump on it, here is how I do it.

I want to sell it to you for $2,500.

But, to entice you into buying it I will say I am offering a "discount". So, I will say the regular price was $4,000. I say it's a discounted..for today only, week only, for military only, for veterans only, for senior citizens only, or just a plain discount. You are thinking you saved $1,500 but realistically I was going to sell it for $2,500 anyway and the extra discount stuff was a worm and you were the fish. Truth be told, I made a $500 profit off of the $2,500. No Point Intended In This Particular Situation.

johndoee

cyberguypr wrote: »

I'm really trying to see the value proposition here. Who is giving the courses? Joe blow from the street or hardcore "been there done that" security practitioners? To me some of the biggest value comes from the caliber of SANS trainers, so there's that.

That was funny

Peters, Jeff

I think our value proposition is pretty straightforward when looking at the numbers.

Our training course is a few hundred dollars less, and SANS upsells $2,700 worth of additional material (including the certification attempt) – all of which we include for free. As for our instructors, they all have at least 10 years of industry training experience and are professionals with real world experience.

GPEN.jpg

JoJoCal19

I'm confused. Is it SANS' books (compressed into one physical book) that you're using, or is your own custom made book with your own material? If it's the former, I can kind of see the value. Also, are the instructors just instructors, or are they actual practitioners that also teach (like SANS)? As cyberguypr stated, a lot of value comes from the instructors that are actually doing the stuff day in and day out, that can tie the material back to their jobs and give great examples (Dr. Eric Cole is amazing at this). For example, in SEC503 having Mike Poor explain the really low level stuff in practical usage really helped understand otherwise difficult material.

johndoee

Jeff_Peters wrote: »

I think our value proposition is pretty straightforward when looking at the numbers.

Our training course is a few hundred dollars less, and SANS upsells $2,700 worth of additional material (including the certification attempt) – all of which we include for free. As for our instructors, they all have at least 10 years of industry training experience and are professionals with real world experience.

Post the LinkedIn/Names of the instructors or we don't believe you. Let us do our own research. We are not and I mean not going to take your word for it! Post the instructor names, let us be the judge and jury!

cyberguypr

I don't know... I've heard way too many stories of lousy Infosec Institute classes. Although I never been to your classes, one of my guys has been to two of your trainings (before he came to my team) and complains all the time about the poor quality of content as well as instructors and tells people constantly to just use other providers.

I'm still skeptic but don't want to judge without having all the facts. My proposition: how about having someone from here audit a GIAC course and provide a full review after? Maybe someone who is already GIAC certified in some of your bootcamps and is a SME for GIAC, CompTIA, and ISC2. I know a guy

TechGromit

I have no comment to the quality of the training, I'm just suprised SANS allows this. What is the benefit to them? What markets Infosec Institute have access to, that SANS can't reach themselves. If Infosec does a great job training studuents, Great!, but if they screw up, wouldn't this adversely affect the SANS / GIAC brand? I'm not seeing the upside for SANS. Except perhaps for GIAC, then they can truthfully claim the GIAC isn't a vendor specific cert.

cyberguypr

I confirmed this is not SANS/GIAC sanctioned.

McxRisley

cyberguypr wrote: »

I confirmed this is not SANS/GIAC sanctioned.

#inb4loominglawsuit

On a side note, Infosec Institute WILL NEVER GAIN MY BUSINESS. I inquired about a course 3 years ago and despite my numerous messages and responses, you still spam my email on a daily basis. You and your institute are scum.

TechGromit

cyberguypr wrote: »

I confirmed this is not SANS/GIAC sanctioned.

This isn't illegal / copyright violation per se, so long as InfoSec is careful not to copy materials from the SANS courseware, and pulled from it other sources they can legally teach a course designed to pass a GIAC exam. But I would look for a significant price cut for there course over a SANS course, a few hundred dollars isn't enough of an incentive to me to take their course instead of just taking an official SANS course. Even assuming the material / instructor was on par with a SANS course, it would have to be better for me to even consider paying a price so close to the SANS prices. The only way I can see it being better for some than a SANS course is if they are basically teaching you how to pass the exam. While it's not ideal teaching method, in the end some just want to get the cert, having the knowledge is secondary to them.

cyberguypr

*per se (pet peeve of mine)

Agreed. This is no different than SANS giving ISC2 courses. My issue is solely the value proposition, as you mention.

TechGuru80

Jeff_Peters wrote: »

I think our value proposition is pretty straightforward when looking at the numbers.

Our training course is a few hundred dollars less, and SANS upsells $2,700 worth of additional material (including the certification attempt) – all of which we include for free. As for our instructors, they all have at least 10 years of industry training experience and are professionals with real world experience.

NetWars is optional and not necessarily directly linked to a specific course, OnDemand uncharge is only if you attend in-person or live, and there are always discounts running on SANS anywhere from a few hundred dollars up to a free certification attempt.

In the end, it really makes zero sense to save even say $1,000 on a course which is a 3rd party versus taking the class directly from SANS (and potentially the instructor who made the course). As I said before, to get traction you are really going to need to charge a lot less and build up a list of successful candidates challenging the exam because there is way too much risk for the candidate when the price points are that close.

BlackBeret

As for SANS/GIAC they are officially two separate entities. One of the reasons my company allows for education assistance to count towards SANS/GIAC and not eLearnSecurity is because they offer the certification as a stand alone item. Infosec Institute offering training for a GIAC certification can be viewed the same as SANS offering training for a GIAC certification, in theory.

The problem I see is that GIAC tests can be taken solely based on the SANS books, everything else just reinforces it. There are dozens of pentesting courses out there already, but if you're not wording everything and teaching the same exact way SANS is, than you're going to miss items on the GIAC test. If you are wording your course exactly like SANS, teaching the same exact materials, etc. you're just cloning their course. So in order to be applicable towards GIAC it is either a clone, or not going to be specific enough. Why would I pay roughly the same amount to go to the knock-off version?

Honestly, I'm not involved with Infosec Institute, but I think they were on the right track before by offering their own pentesting courses with certifications that lined up similar to SANS/GIAC. My company requires a number of certifications and there's always multiple options, CPT/GPEN, GREM/CREA, etc. I had GPEN prior to this company, but would have happily done CPT to save the money.

I took the Reverse Engineering mentored on-line last year from Infosec Institute because of the value in price/training materials. Trying to call the same courses you're already teaching by the GIAC name, and doubling the price, is going to make it less valuable.

The other thing I would be wary of is the update/refresh cycle. SANS courses have minor updates quarterly, and major updates fairly often. These items end up reflected in the GIAC exams quickly. The Reverse Engineering course I took at the end of 2017 from Infosec Institute was on Windows XP, with the instructor constantly referencing the "new" Vista OS and how it might affect some of what we were doing. It was still a good course in the basics, but Infosec Institute clearly doesn't refresh courses like SANS, which means by next quarter the new GIAC training courses will start to fall behind.

TechGromit

BlackBeret wrote: »

As for SANS/GIAC they are officially two separate entities.

Sure they are, not only do they share office space, they even share the same business number. And it's not like they are such small operations they are forced to share resources to stay in business, with the profits they make they could easily afford to buy two good sized office buildings. If you truthfully believe they are separate entities, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I believe you would be interest in purchasing.

josephandre

This thread is brutal lol. yeesh

E Double U

josephandre wrote: »

This thread is brutal lol. yeesh

But don't you just love it?