Why do people hate the CISSP?

I have been reading a variety of blogs relating to the CISSP and the opinions that range from distaste to a downright hatred for the certification. I'm wondering where this is stemming from exactly? It's not as if ISC2 made any false claims of what the CISSP is or represents. A couple of anti-cissp reasons I have seen are:

1. HR using it as a benchmark for infosec. How dare they use a standard test to assume subject knowledge!
2. Infosec "Consultants" who flash it around and claim expert-level knowledge. How does this affect you?
3. The CISSP is waaay non-technical. It has no real-world applications. ...I don't think we want to get into another theory vs. real-world debate.

Overall, I don't even see the "reasons" to be anything more than surface level at most. They certainly do not validate the energy used to post the numerous blogs across the internet. So, if you truly love or hate the CISSP, I'd love to hear from you.

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

jeremywatts2005

Ryston said:

Jeremywatts, for what it's worth I study Red Teaming and CISSP material because some day if/when I get a job on a red team my job will be to report to a CISSP holder how to improve their security. Understanding their paradigm will help me effectively communicate findings to them. Maybe I'm going overkill, I don't know.

Actually Ryston the CISSP will be reporting to you. Likely you will be a red team lead and the CISSP will be sitting in monitoring trying to study for an OSCP LOL.... No joke I have a lot of CISSP holders who I have to direct during investigations and incidents. In DFIR and Red Team you have to know the technical specs and how to implement them. That is an arch and red team personnel working together. CISSP honestly I don't even see as directors anymore they have become so common place. Most of the directors in DFIR I see have OSCP, CASP, GCIH or other certs along those lines. A CISSP doesn't benefit to that level like it used to. I can remember a CISSP would be a sure shot or as close to it as you could get in security management. Now it is not.

JDMurray

FYI: This thread is from 2015. Please realize that some of the information presented here does not apply to the modern day CISSP exam or cert.

cyberguypr

You beat me to it. Surprised no one realized the 3+ year necro and just went with it.

ITHokie

cyberguypr said:

You beat me to it. Surprised no one realized the 3+ year necro and just went with it.

I would imagine that others, like me, aren't familiar with the new site layout.

JDMurray

We had this same problem on the old vBulliten site too.

ITHokie

That's fine, but there is no obvious timestamp on the thread and the message timestamps are practically part of the user profile. I didn't notice until I really looked for it. Not a big deal.