CISM (Certified Information Security Manager) and CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) are the certifications that can be compared to towering pillars of professional excellence in the ever-changing field of cybersecurity. The two are both weight of their own in the industry, but they are used in the working domain in markedly different ways and career patterns.
CISM is mostly concerned with the information security management and governance. The certification is aimed at the professionals who have intentions to become leaders of security teams, initiate organizational security plans, and direct enterprise-wide security initiatives. The CISM course touches on four major areas which are, information security governance, risk management, incident response and program development.
The difference between CISM and others is that of strategic outlook. Instead of getting in the nitty-gritty of the technical implementation details, it will focus on how security can be aligned with the business goals. CISM professional aim is to acquire managerial credentials and those who aspire to get into the management sector aim to have something to influence the security decisions at the top level.
CISSP approaches cybersecurity in a more general and technical way. CISSP addresses all these areas of concern using eight broad areas that constitute security architecture, asset security, communication security, and software development security aspects of cybersecurity in a comprehensive or whole-view perspective regarding the technical and management perspectives.
CISSP certification also demands knowledge in more than one area of knowledge in security and therefore is suitable to promote the interest of professionals that are interested in technical competency in the professional sector. It is usually regarded as the gold standard of senior-level security professionals.
It is very possible that between CISM and CISSP, your career objectives could dictate your choice. Graduates of the CISM course are usually interested in such positions as Chief Information Security Officer, Security Manager, or Risk Manager. Such jobs concentrate on policy formulation, team management and strategy formulation.
In their turn, CISSP members tend to become Security Architects, Security Consultants, or Senior Security Decision Engineers. They are involved directly in performing the tasks in addition to making contribution to strategic decisions.
Both the certifications are time consuming. The CISM courses are usually 40-60 hour study representing the management structures and governance concepts. The tests focus on practical management situations in the form of 150 questions.
CiSSP training is also more strenuous, usually taking 100-150 hours of studying the eight domains. The test has 100-150 adaptive questions which are based on performance.
You may want to consider CISM when moving out of technical work to management positions, when your business acumen is above average, and when you are interested more in planning than tactical execution. The content of the CISM course fully complies with the tasks of an executive.
The CISSP is what you should choose, when you need to support your technical knowledge and advance your career, work with a variety of security issues, and have a broad vision of security industry.
Compared to each other CISM vs CISSP, neither of the certifications is more valid than the other since they serve various professionals. Most of the people who succeed in their security careers end up carrying out both and begin with CISSP as the technical foundation and CISM as the management credibility.
The solution is choosing certification to suit your career plan, position and personal interests. Picking the management-oriented CISM program or the complex CISSP program, you can be sure that you will advance your career in cybersecurity and its earning capabilities multiple times.
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