As technology evolves, and new threats emerge, effective cyber security is becoming increasingly important. For driven, strategic professionals, this can provide a career path which is not only fascinating, but lucrative too.
Securing the necessary qualifications is absolutely crucial to successfully pursuing that path. At ALC Training, we don’t only tell you which qualifications to target, but help you achieve them too. In this article we’ll break down two of the most important examples of all SABSA and CISSP and explain how they can propel you to cyber security success.
What Does SABSA Involve?
SABSA is the world’s leading open security architecture framework and methodology. It takes a comprehensive, top-to-bottom approach, covering cyber security strategy, planning, and management. Crucially, it takes a business-driven approach, and can play an invaluable role in not only enabling an organisation to function how it needs to, but how it wants to. Here at ALC Training, we offer five-day SABSA courses which are structured into foundation and advanced levels. If you want to take your cyber security and security architecture learning to the next level in terms of both strategy and framework, the SABSA certification is an excellent choice.
What Does CISSP Build?
CISSP remains the gold standard for cyber security qualifications, and it has been for a long time now. It’s no surprise, therefore, that it has consistently proven one of our most popular courses over the years. If you’re looking for a broad grounding in cyber security, with a focus on achieving a leadership position in the future, this is the perfect qualification for you.
More specifically, the CISSP program as offered by ALC Training involves a five-day preparatory course, targeting an extremely valuable qualification. It covers the eight domains of the CISSP Common Body of Knowledge, and requires at least five years of experience before you can apply for the certification.
Overall, the CISSP certification shows employers that you have a wide base of knowledge in cyber security, including a significant amount of depth, and that you have the potential to fulfil a leadership position.
SABSA vs CISSP – The Key Differences
As you’ve already seen, SABSA and CISSP are both extremely valuable qualifications to pursue. There are still key differences between the two of them, however.
CISSP gives you a broad understanding of cyber security, albeit while still providing plenty of depth. It covers eight key areas, essentially enabling you to go in a variety of different directions, with a view to achieving a leadership position.
SABSA is a more strategic security architecture qualification, helping you to understand and build enterprise-level architecture. It gives you a more specific and targeted approach to cyber security, which can prove particularly useful if you already have a good idea of the position you’d like to pursue.
Your Potential Career Path
While the learning you’ll gain from either of these qualifications will prove both fascinating and useful, there are also several real-world career paths they’ll allow you to pursue.
If you’re interested in a more hands-on, implementation-heavy career, for example, you can target a position as a Security Engineer. In this case, we’d recommend targeting CISSP first, then adding an architecture-focused qualification later.
Security Consultants, meanwhile, have a more advisory, governance-focused role. This requires both breadth and depth, so you should tackle CISSP first, then add SABSA if and when you want to take on more architecture-targeted engagements.
If you’d prefer to take the more strategic path from the start, you could aim to become a Security Architect or an Enterprise Architect. The SABSA Foundation course will give you the enterprise security architecture grounding you need here, while the CISSP will subsequently add both breadth and credibility to your security architect career path.
Which Qualification Should You Prioritise?
We’re frequently asked which qualification to take first, SABSA, or CISSP.
As you can see in the previous section, it very much depends on the type of role you’re pursuing and the current point you’re at in your career.
If you’re targeting broader security coverage across various domains, start with CISSP. That might be down to the particular role you’re targeting, or if you’re more generally looking to move up into a senior position. If you’re specifically looking to work within security architecture in the short-to-mid term, however, then prioritise SABSA.
The Smart Play – Combining Both
There’s no rule stating that you can only choose one out of SABSA and CISSP. In fact, if you’re eventually targeting a senior architecture role, you should absolutely try to gain both cyber security certifications.
The CISSP certification will give you a broad understanding of cyber security, covering a wide range of domains. The SABSA certification gives you knowledge of security architecture framework, and generally improves your strategic and planning skills.
By combining both, you give yourself a formidable CV, a huge amount of industry expertise, and plenty of options for your future career. And, here at ALC Training, we’d absolutely love to be with you every step of the way.