Seventy-six percent of the South African candidates for the Certified Information Security Specialist Professional (CISSP) exams passed recently, according to the local organisers.
While the pass rate may seem high, the local exam organisers have expressed concern that more candidates are writing the exams without the necessary preparation or experience.
Mervin Pearce, a board member on the CISSP controlling body, the International Information Security Systems Certified Consortium (ISC(2)), says the increased awareness by corporations that they need qualified security experts means more people are writing the exams when they are not ready.
"In terms of corporate governance, the management of a company`s information security risk has to be managed by a qualified person. This means there is greater demand for such people with some kind of qualification that should be internationally recognised," he says.
Pearce says SA has about 180 CISSP graduates.
Twenty-eight people wrote the CISSP in Johannesburg in May and another 12 wrote it in Cape Town in June. The exam consists of 250 questions covering 10 "domains" that include diverse topics such as ethics. A pass mark of 700 points out of a total of 1 000 is necessary.
Karel Rode, one of the exam invigilators, says people who fail are guided by being told where they went wrong and are given their marks. "However, those who pass are not told their marks, so as to not to encourage one-upmanship," he says.
Pearce was the first South African to obtain the CISSP qualification in 1997 and sits on the body`s board, which is headquartered in the US state of Florida.
The cost to write the exams is $500 and the ISC(2) also requires its members to pay an annual fee of $80. Certified members also have to stay current through the earning of 120 continuous education points in a three-year cycle and these can be earned through instruction received or given.
The next round of exams for SA will take place on 15 October in Johannesburg and 19 November in Cape Town.
More information can be obtained from www.cissp.co.za.
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