CISSP Vs CISA Vs CISM: Brief Comparison Of Assured Jobs

Posted by Mayank Singh on August 19th, 2019

While all the three courses are somewhat related to Information Technology security, there is a vast difference between the three. So much so that most aspirants get confused about which course to take and often end up choosing the wrong one. While each has its individual courses culminating into an exam and a resultant certification, the utility, area of work and the certification issuing authority are different. However both the cisa training course and the cism training courses are conducted by ISACA while the certification course for cissp is conducted by ISSCC.

Which course to avail

The final decision of the same depends on the field of work that a person wants to be associated with in the future. It has been seen that generally:

• People wanting to be IT auditors need to take up CISA,
• A person wanting to become a qualified manager in IT security or information risk has to take up CISM and
• The cissp certification course needs to be taken up by any person wanting to work in any area of information security.

Thus it can be rightly said that people appearing for interview of preparing for those jobs that require:

• IT auditing and controls and information security have to be CISA certified so that they are adept at handling finance, auditing and accounting needs of a company and also are certified to work in areas pertaining to SOX, GLBA, HIPAA etc.,
• Management of information risk and security, business continuity, disaster management etc., have to be CISM certified so that they are able to handle technical areas like development of standards and policies, assurance of information and assurance compliance, program or project management, perimeter security etc.,
• A person to have an advanced knowledge of information security generally hire people with CISSP certification but it is not a mandatory requirement as is the CISA or the CISM certifications.

Generally when companies need IT professionals for management of information security, they generally prefer taking people who have taken both the cissp certification course and the CISM certification course. This assures companies of greater depth of knowledge in this field thereby resulting in an enhanced and much more efficient performance.

Common prerequisites for the courses

All the three different certified courses of CISA, CISM and CISSP can only be taken by professionals who have at least 5 years work experience in the relevant field. In fact all the three certificate courses also require ongoing training so as to be able to maintain the certifications and the credentials attached to it.

Another factor common to all the three is the salary and the remuneration which does not differ much depending on whether a person has taken a CISM, CISSP or a cisa training course.

It would be prudent to mention here that irrespective of which course, an IT security professional opts for, the career prospects remain bright for there is a huge demand for skilled cyber security professionals especially with internet becoming the new marketplace. In fact jobs associated with cyber security are said to grow enormously in the coming years and the demand as well as the remuneration is going to skyrocket beyond ones expectations. Thus this is one field wherein it is possible to invest now and reap