@ISTREDD wrote:
GOOD EVENING,
I am currently a Marine holding the job of an Information Security Technician. I have only been doing this job for a little under a year, but I know this is a Career Field I would love to continue once I retire in 9 more years.
what other certs do you recommend in order to secure an high paying job?
Since others have addressed the other points in your post let me address the one that stood out to me, the part about securing a high paying job. I have seen plenty of people go into this field because of the anticipated great money they would be making only to find themselves going to a well paying job that they hated. Don't be one of them. If this is truly your passion and you love it know that you will be taking on a mantle of continuous learning. You will have to learn about emerging technology, read constantly to stay abreast of new attacks and strategies to mitigate them. If you want to become really good at it you will also need to return to the community and help others.
If you become good to excellent at what you do the money will come, if you apply yourself. Learn not only information security stuff but also learn management skills. If you are retiring from the Corps you should have risen to levels of leadership along your path. Since you have 9 years left see how far you can rise and how many management duties you can take on. DO NOT acquire short-timers disease. I have seen promising future careers shot down by this serious affliction. Take advantage of the Command Training Center (CTC) facilities on your base. I know I worked at one USMC base and the service members had to use the CTC at another base 45 minutes away. I offered it to several of my directs and only a few took me up on it.
If you want to become really successful in this field you have to get away from the mindset that security is a stop sign and needs to be more like a speed bump You will have to come up with innovative ways to provide security with the funds/resources/talent level you have. Also do not get locked into the federal government's compliance mindset. Compliance does not always equal security but security can be compliance if applied correctly.
There should be numerous other free resources so ask around. I know that the NKO (Navy Knowledge Online) used to offer skillsoft courses for free, used to pay for certification fees, and had other free resources. The MCCS main library online used to offer access to online resources like Safari books online and books 24x7.
Read management books to learn to start thinking like management because to become successful in this field as a CISO (if that is where you want to be) you will need to be able to balance security requirements versus management abilities/resources. You didn't mention salary ranges you were looking to land in so it makes it hard for us to know what you consider high paying. When I was only making $5/hr back in the day, $10/hr was a high paying job to me. You can find plenty of analyst type roles in the $50-75$K range. Management can take you over the six figure number. Gov Contractors and consultants can also provide high pay (6 figures) with a trade-off of stability.
Hope this helps.
