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oi
Newcomer I

Holding a Concentration with expired CISSP?

I recently passed and was awarded the ISSMP concentration.  Looking at my member dashboard, I think I have discovered a "life hack" of sorts.  I could stop logging CPEs for CISSP and only log 20 per 3-year cycle for ISSMP.  At the end of my current cycle, what would happen? 

 

Can a concentration like ISSMP renew while CISSP expires?  If so, sounds like a great way to save the hassle of CPEs while still getting through the HR text-matching firewall (because the string "cissp-issmp" contains "cissp").

5 Replies
AlecTrevelyan
Community Champion

You can't hold a concentration without being a CISSP - you should see they have the same cycle dates as they are inextricably linked.

 

As such, as soon as your CISSP expires, so does your concentration.

 

oi
Newcomer I

Thanks for replying, @AlecTrevelyan.  But can you show me something in writing?

 

According to this page, if you go under "Maintaining Your Concentration," you will see:

 

Once you have passed your CISSP-ISSMP exam and are certified, you need to recertify every three years. To do so, you simply need to:

  • Earn 20 Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits each year. You may apply these 20 credits toward your CISSP CPE requirement as long as these credits are specific to security management.
  • There is no additional AMF for earning and maintaining CISSP concentrations.

 Seems to me there is only a CISSP requirement to earn a concentration, but not to renew or hold.

AlecTrevelyan
Community Champion

As you said, holding the CISSP is explicitly stated in terms of earning a concentration, so a reasonable interpretation is it's implicitly also required for maintenance.

 

However, the closest I have seen to this being explicitly stated is on page 6 of the CPE Handbook:

 

"If you hold a CISSP concentration, 20 CPE credits of the total number of Group A CPE credits required in the CISSP three-year cycle must be directly related to your concentration."

 

Good luck with your approach though - let us know how you get on with it!

 

oi
Newcomer I

Can we get someone from ISC2 to officiate this?  This is the "member support" section, after all.

 

I'm kind of new here, so I'm not sure who to tag.  I'm sure future members would appreciate having this answered out in the public, where they can find it themselves.

 

@isc2jade @AndreaMoore @Kaity @sgrover 

AndreaMoore
Community Manager

@oi In order to earn and maintain your concentration, you'll need to keep you CISSP certification active (which includes staying current on your CPE credits). If you have more questions, you can email membersupport@isc2.org




ISC2 Community Manager