IT-Security Training & Certification NOTEs:

Practical Application of Knowledge or Head Knowledge?

• More and more employers are asking for IT-Security certification / training courses which
train people to apply the knowledge learnt and skills developed to real-world situations.
• They want people who are able to help the organization in the execution of its business,
not those just attend a certification or training course for head knowledge.
• Some are starting to include practical tests during interview sessions to see if candidates
can display practical application of knowledge and skill.

Practical Testing or “Exam-Cramming”?

• Increasingly, more people are coming round to the view that practical lab-based hands-
on examination formats provide a real-world and realistic proving-ground for practical
application of skill that employers expect and demand. For example, would you let a
surgeon who did not first go through some form of practical exam or practical
assessment to prove their capability operate on you?
• A practical exam involves a practical hands-on evaluation of the assessee’s skill and
ability to appy that skill, and gives you confidence that the person got certified because
he/she proved that he could apply the knowledge and skills learnt.

Certification Investment Protection

• Various “brain-dump”, “exam-cram” and other exam-preparation resources exist on the
internet today and people with little practical experience can also use such facilities to
intensively study-cram for exams.
• Thus, if you or your employer spend good money to send you for an IT-Security
certification course, it makes business sense to select courses with practical lab-based
exams as they are resistant to internet-based “brain-dumps” and “exam-cram”
resources. This is because practical lab-based exams focus on making candidates
prove their practical application of knowledge and skill before they can be certified.
Those who cannot show that they can use the skills learnt to solve various scenarios will
not be able to pass and attain the certification which you worked so hard to get.

Were You Hired To Defend or Attack?

• In most cases, an IT-Security professional is hired to help defend his/her organization's

assets from attack and not for attacking those of its competitors, as evidenced by
various survey results such as the following :
“68 percent say they wouldn’t (hire hackers), with 17% unsure of their position on the
subject.”
- Page 16, 8th Annual CSI-FBI Computer Crime And Security Survey

• To defend corporate assets, you cannot focus on hacking and hacking tools alone
because the very nature of hacking is attacking, not defending. Defending requires a
completely different mindset because how to break something is not the same as how to
construct and/or fix it. Similarly, focusing solely on how to use hacking tools alone
means that when your tool becomes outdated due to technological advancements, so
does your skill because it is tied to the tool.
Why Choose ThinkSECURE training / certification?
THINKSECURE® PTE LTD (“Think ThinkSECURE”
Think - http://securitystartshere.org) only offers
certifications targeted exclusively at technical-level IT-Security Professionals which are
technically comprehensive and practical-lab-based in both certification training and
examination. Designed by experienced technical IT-Security Practitioners and Researchers
involved in real-world IT-Security R&D, penetration-testing and digital investigation/forensics,
our certifications educate attendees on correct professional methods of approaching and
focusing on various multiple aspects of IT-Security.

Our certifications focus on teaching methodologies, an in-depth understanding of the technical

protocols on which the technologies rely on, and becoming a self-starter, as opposed to solely
focusing on tools. Using this approach, once any tool the certified professional uses becomes
outdated, he/she simply applies what skills they've acquired through our certification training
course to find a new tool and plug it into the methodology which was taught. This means the
skills and attitude the certified professional gains from attaining a ThinkSECURE
Think certification
will enable him/her to keep perpetually updated. This practical technical approach is what
makes previous course attendees fly in from around the world just to attend ThinkSECURE
Think
training classes and sit for the certification exams.

But what exactly do we mean when we say that our certifications use rigorous, practical,
lab-based, hands-on exams?

It simply means this: to become certified, candidates must prove themselves through a series
of technical actions, command entries and real-time analysis against real-life, lab-based
scenarios and targets in order to be able to answer the certification exam questions.

Thus, the candidate is tested for practical application of knowledge and skills, which employers
find valuable. A practical lab-based hands-on exam correctly assesses the true technical
capability of a candidate properly and accurately under real-world scenarios with time-based
pressure that is commonly found in real-life.

Thus, all our certifications offer the following core benefits and advantages for both
employers and individuals :

• provides IT-Security professionals with solid, no-nonsense, comprehensive technical

methodologies, techniques and skills and, equally important, the ability to self-maintain
and self-upgrade them;

• ensures that only those IT-Security professionals who demonstrate true ability to apply
knowledge practically in a real-world pressure scenario can attain certification;

• stops pretenders who do not know how to practically apply knowledge and skill from
attaining and thus lowering the value of the certification over the long run, thereby
safeguarding the investment that you as an employer or self-funded student make in
attaining the certification; and

• helps employers identify that someone who has attained a ThinkSECURE

Think certification
is likely to be a truly capable employee and able contributor in his/her job role in the
company because he/she has practically demonstrated real-world ability to apply
knowledge and skill to new situations in the IT-Security area which he/she is certified in.
For more details regarding the availability, schedule and pricing for our
training courses and certifications in your country, please visit :

http://training.securitystartshere.org

“THINKSECURE” is a registered trademark of THINKSECURE PTE LTD in Singapore.