innismir.net

I was very lucky this summer because the Security Office got some funding for training and footed the bill for another SANS course. I opted to go for SANS SEC504: Hacker Techniques, Exploits & Incident Handling. I did a “At Home” course this time, which met three times a week online and was taught Ed Skoudis and John Strand. While I did like the self paced learning that I had for SEC503, but it was very cool to be taught by the folks that you always heard on and about PSW. Plus, I was able to make snide remarks in the chat window.

As much as I still wonder about certifications in general, I am starting to really like SANS courses. The course wasted little time on the basics and quickly had us rolling up our sleeves mucking about in what I classify as “cool sh*t”. While I did have stretches where I was just nodding and going “yeah… yeah… know that… uh-huh…” I would occasionally see or hear something, go “Oooh!”, and make write down some notes. The course consisted of 5 books of material, ranging from incident planning and handling to how to exploit systems, and then culminated in a capture the flag contest. I am ashamed to say the CTF was designed well enough that I could barely establish a toehold on the first server, I guess my days of staying up for an entire weekend and dominating the CTF at Northeastern is far behind me.

Although the course itself wrapped up sometime in the summer, I finally took my certification test today and passed with flying colors. I am happy to report that I have even more alphabet soup after my name and I am now “Ben Jackson, GCIA, GCIH”

Over the past few months, work generously paid for me to take a SANS course online. I opted to take “SEC503: Intrusion Detection In-Depth.” This was my first “certification” type course, and overall I was pleased. The course was on-target and wasted no time getting dirty into the nuts and bolts of the topic. It was very well done and despite me knowing a bunch of the basics, more often then not it was new territory for me and I had a ball learning it. There were areas which I wondered how useful they were going to be (Attacks against rsh? Really?) but I’d say 95% of the material was relevant to me in dealing with my day-to-day tasks. On the exam, I kicked ass and took names. So now, I am a GIAC Certified Intrusion Analyst. Bow before me.

I’ve always wondered about certifications. While there are people who have them that are very clueful, there is a sizable group who are certified who I often wonder if they really know how to use it. Now that I’ve gone through the process, I still wonder. I now have a sheet of paper that says I can be given a packet dump and tell you if you are doomed or not. While I feel that I am reasonably adept in studying IDS alerts and getting a reasonably good idea as to what is going on, I don’t think I should be put in charge of a large IDS system any time soon.

I’m not knocking ceritifcations. They are a good thing and I believe it does show that I do (partially) know what I am talking about when it comes to these things. More then anything, it shows that I know the basics, I can sit down and field questions tossed at me, and I can answer a 150 question exam. Nothing more, nothing less. What worries me that people take these certifications as gospel and are ready to proclaim people experts by the amount of letters after their name rather then they experience on the ground.

OK… Meandering Rant off.