Cybersecurity Certification Tier List

all right guys so you asked for it and I'm going to deliver the cyber security certification tier list where I'll be ranking the best and the worst cyber security certificates and certifications from s tier which is the best to f-tier which is the worst now keep in mind this is just my opinion cyber security is something that changes all the time so the information I give you now may be outdated a year from now but this is based on my best judgment from my own experience the experiences of my students and the experiences of other experts that I've reached out to so if you appreciate me doing this type of video let me know by ly tapping that like button and let's jump into it with number one on the list which is going to be the Azure security certifications and this includes A500 which is a azir security engineer associate and this focuses on implementing managing and monitoring Security in azour environments now this one requires hands-on experience with azour and exams are updated regularly to reflect current azour features now a lot of people would probably put this one into a tier but I'm going to go ahead and put it into B tier and here's why while very valuable these are vendor specific and and might not be as universally applicable as other a tier certifications however this could depend on the specific job market and region that you live in so yeah this one goes into B tier very solid but not quite a tier material next is going to be a certificate and this one is going to be especially good if you are a beginner watching this and that's going to be the Google cyber security professional certificate and I don't think I need to say anything about this one this one has a ridiculous amount of positive reviews online it's got a 4.8 star rating on corsera this one is unbelievable ably good if you are a total beginner if you aren't a beginner you can probably skip out on this one but if you are this one is absolutely s tier and by the way if you're beginner definitely check it out in the description and the pen comment below next is going to be ccsk which is the certification of cloud security knowledge and this is a vendor neutral Cloud security certification now while ccsk is an excellent certification it's not quite as universally recognized or demanded as cissp now don't get me wrong it is highly valuable but its Niche focus on cloud security puts it slightly below s tier in my opinion so I'm going to go ahead and put this one into a tier next is going to be the ccsp which is the certified Cloud security professional certification now this Advanced Cloud security certification requires 5 years of cumulative paid work experience in it of which three years must be an information security and one year in Cloud security and this one complements the cissp for cloud Focus roles so I really like this one I'm actually going to go ahead and put it into a tier and by the way I'm moving super fast here guys but it's because there's like there's a lot of these certifications if you want me to make more videos on specific ones just let me know but this is mostly just for me to give you guys my opinion next is going to be the certified ethical hacker certification and it's wellknown but it's also controversial in the security Community it has a multiple choice exam format and it's criticized for lack of Hands-On testing but now it does cover a wide range of tools but there's less focus on underlying principles so overall this one definitely has its positives and negatives but I think I'm going to go ahead and put it into D tier because it still appears in a lot of job listings and it does have some name recognition it's not a great certification but its continued presence in the job market does suggest that it's not entirely without value and one thing I will say and I've mentioned this many times on the channel is the most important thing when it comes to certifications is that hiring managers business owners and basically decision makers both recognize and respect the CT so the CT itself can suck right it can be absolute trash but if business owners and hiring managers recognize and respect it then you unfortunately have to respect it too all right so the cissp is next and I'm just going to go ahead and put this one straight into s tier it requires 5 years of experience in two or more security domains it covers eight domains of information security and it's recognized globally and it's often required for senior security positions and it requires continuous professional education in order to maintain the certification so this one is highly respected pretty much automatic s tier next is the CompTIA A+ now this one is an entry-level it certification it covers Hardware software and basic Network and it's a good starting point for it careers but it's too basic for most security roles so for that reason I mean this isn't a bad one to have like a lot of people probably already have this one but in many cases this one just isn't going to impress anyone in the cyber security world so for that reason I'm going to go ahead and put it in D deter next is the CompTIA Casp plus and that's the advanced security practitioner certification and this is comp Tia's highest level security certification and it requires practical application of skills and it's also renewable every 3 years through the continuing education system that they have so this one is really solid CompTIA is a really well recognized company I'm going to go ahead and put this one into B tier status now I will say that a lot of people hate CompTIA for some reason and I kind of understand why some of their certifications aren't that good but they really are well recognized and unfortunately until that changes you do have to give them respect when it comes to actually getting hired next is going to be the CompTIA CIS A+ and that's the cyber security analyst certification and this one focuses on threat detection and response now requires practical application of skills and it's renewable every 3 years through continuing education so this is another one that's relatively good I'm going to go ahead and put it into B tier next is the CompTIA Network plus now this one is for networking more than cyber security so it's not super impressive to Security Professionals but with that being said it's often a prerequisite for security certifications so overall it's kind of hard to rank this one because it's a prerequisite for some of them but it's also not that impressive I'm going to go ahead and put it into C tier next is the CompTIA pin Test Plus certification and this one focuses on penetration testing and vulnerability management now this one is less Hands-On than the ocp or cpts and I guess it's good for understanding the business and legal aspects of penetration testing but overall it's really not that good and it's a bit of a disappointment there's just other certifications that are significantly better so I'm going to go ahead and put this one into D tier now next is the CompTIA Security Plus and this is the entrylevel security certification and it covers network security compliance operational security threats and vulnerabilities now this is definitely not a bad one to start with it is valid for 3 years and it requires renewal through continuing education or retesting and it is often required by the US Department of Defense and while it is a great entry-level certification it's really not as advanced or specialized as the other a tier certifications so it is an excellent starting point but it doesn't carry the same weight as the ccsp or the oscp in most job markets so it's kind of another one of those where they're going to sort of expect you to have it but it also isn't that impressive so I'm kind of wondering if I should put it in B tier or a tier because you should probably have it at the same time it's not really that impressive I think I'm going to go ahead and put this one into B tier next is the cpts which is the certified penetration testing specialist certification and this one goes straight into s tier because there is a 10day exam period and it's even more extensive than the OSP now this one requires completion of the hack the boox Academy's penetration tester job roll path and it cover a wide range of advanced penetration testing techniques and this one is highly respected in the technical community so this one like I said straight into s tier super impressive if you have this and I pretty much have nothing else more to say about it next is the GAC which is the global information assurance certification and this one is offered in various different specializations for instance inet handling and forensics and it's really known for its rigorous and up-to-date content and this one is really expensive but at the same time it's often employer sponsored so yeah this one's really solid I'm going to go ahead and give it a b tier ranking next is the gxpn which is the gak exploit researcher and advanced penetration tester certification and this one focuses on exploit development and it covers topics like fuzzing and Shell Code development and it's challenging even for experienced professionals and this one is definitely expensive but it's also comprehensive and given its Advanced nature and the depth of knowledge that it covers and it's especially good for those specializing in exploit research and advanced penetration testing so yeah I'm going to go ahead and put this one in a tier next is isaca which is the information systems audit and Control Association and this one has several different certifications so cisa or cisa focuses on it auditing cism is geared towards Information Security Management cisc specializes in it risk management cgeit covers Enterprise it governance and all require relevant work experience in continuing professional education so yeah these ones are super solid very well respected I'm going to go ahead and put them into a tier next is going to be OSP which is the offensive security certified professional certification now this one has a 24hour practical exam simulating a realworld penetration testing experience and it focuses on manual penetration testing techniques so there's no multiple choice questions like some of the other ones on the list which are kind of a joke and it's really just purely Hands-On now this truly prepares you for real world ethical hacking scenarios and because of that I'm going to go ahead and put this one straight into s tier next is oep which is the offensive security experienced penetration tester certification and this one is an advanced penetration testing certification it focuses on evasion techniques and advanced exploits and it is a 48h hour practical exam and it builds upon skills learned in ocp so oep is increasingly recognized as one of the most challenging and respected Advanced penetration testing certifications and its practical nature and the advanced skills it tests for make it worthy of s tier status so yeah this one's going St into s tier next is the PJP or the Practical Junior penetration tester certification and the pnppt which is the Practical Network penetration tester certification now this one is offered by TCM security and it's founded by a popular YouTuber Heath Adams now the thing about the cyber security world is it's constantly changing right hackers are doing new things cyber Security Professionals are doing new things and so the usual thing that I do where I balance the respect and recognition from hiring managers and business owners versus how good it actually is is one of those things where it can change really quickly so this one really focuses on practical Real World skills and from what I've heard it's really good and the exam includes report writing and simulating real penetration testing work so everything I've heard about it is really good I don't think it has the recognition of some of the other ones but hopefully that'll change soon I'm going to go ahead and put this one into a tier next is red team Ops and this one covers realistic adversary simulation and it focuses on Cobalt strike usage now this one actually includes opset considerations that are often overlooked in other certifications and it's a two-tiered certification system for Progressive learning so this one especially for the right type of situation like protecting someone this can be excellent I'm going to go ahead and put this one into a tier next is Crest which is the Council of registered ethical security testers certification and this one is well recognized in the UK and some other countries in Europe and it includes various levels of penetration testing certifications but it's less well known in North America and I know that most of the people watching this are probably from North America so if you're from the UK or some of those countries that it's better known in this one might be better but if you're from the US I'm going to have to go ahead and put this one into D tier next is crtp which is the certified red team professional and crte which is the certified red team expert this one focuses on active directory attacks and defenses and it's a practical Hands-On exam and crte builds on crtp covering more Advanced Techniques now it's less known but highly regarded in technical communities so this is one where for the right type of person if they're looking at your resume it's going to look really good but a lot of the time they're probably not going to recognize what they're looking at so for that reason I have to put it into B tier next is the EC Council Cent which is the certified penetration testing professional certification and this one is an advanced penetration testing certification there's a 24-hour practical exam and it's a newer certification and it's kind of still building industry recognition and it focuses on Specialized penetration testing methodologies so this one it's really tough to say uh it's so new that It's just tough to say I'm I'm going to have to put it into C tier next is the ejpt which is the e-learning security Junior penetration tester certification and also the EC ppv2 which is the e-learn security certified professional penetration tester V2 certification the ejpt is entry level and EC ppv2 is more advanced these both have practical Hands-On exams and there's honestly less industry recognition than something like the OSP so for that reason I think I'm going to go ahead and put these into C tier next is the Google professional Cloud security engineer search and it focuses on securing Google Cloud platform environments so this one is going to be really good if you're working specifically with the Google Cloud platform but the truth is it's less widely used than azour or AWS certifications so I'm going to go ahead and put this one into B tier and next is the gpen which is the GAC penetration tester certification and this one covers both manual and automated penetration testing techniques and it's less Hands-On than the ocp but it's more comprehensive in theoretical knowledge so it's really expensive but it's also thorough but the truth is the ocp is probably a better choice so I'm going to go ahead and put this one into C tier next is the GC which is the GX Security Essentials certification and this one covers a broad range of security topics and it's good foundation but it's less specialized than other GX certifications so I'm also going to have to put this one into C tier next is the isc2 CC which is the certified in cyber security certification and this is an entry-level cyber security certification with no experience required and the truth is other entrylevel cyber security certifications are just going to be significantly better so I have to put this one into F tier next is the isc2 sscp which is the system security certified practitioner certification and this is an entry-level certification from isc2 it requires one year of experience in one or more of seven domains and it's a good alternative to Security Plus but it's honestly just way less widely recognized so it's probably a better idea to just get the Security Plus certification so this one's going to go into D tier next is the iil which is the information technology infrastructure Library certification and this one is more focused on it service management and it's really useful for an understanding of it operations but it's not really security specific so it's not something that's going to really impress anybody although many people probably already have this one so I'm going to go ahead and put this one into F tier then you've got the Cisco CCNA which is the Cisco certified Network associate certification and this provides essential networking knowledge for Security Professionals and it does include Hands-On on simulator exercises so this one is really useful to have but again it's probably not all that impressive but overall I'm going to go ahead and put it into C tier now by the way guys especially if you're a beginner I highly recommend you check out my Google certification tier list where I'm going to go over all of the Google professional certifications from s tier which is the best to F tier which is the worst and you can check that out by clicking right here