Enrolling for a CCNA certificate is a good first step to rising in your career ladder and someday advancing from an associate-level professional to a professional-level networker (CCNP). When it comes to Cisco certifications; with every new stage you rise to, your knowledge and skills in Cisco networking technologies will be increasingly making you less expandable as a networker in our current competitive job market.
This is why many students who dream of becoming networking professionals in IT often take up CCNA as their first Cisco certification. While pursuing your CCNA, there will be several paths of specialization to consider. One of the most marketable of these paths is Cisco CCNA Security.
CCNA Security Certification
To begin with, it’s important to keep in mind that one of the perks of going through a CCNA class is that the course prepares you to install and generally provide support services to small and medium-sized Cisco networks. However, a person who particularly takes a course in Cisco CCNA Security essentially learns how to make a Cisco network secure.
It’s one thing to install, setup and configure a Cisco network for a company, firm or business. Keeping the network secure is a whole different ball game. An efficient Cisco network is one that is well protected from malicious threats. Teaching IT professionals how to set up a network security infrastructure, protect network data, identify and lessen the impact of security threats is the core reason why Cisco CCNA security courses are provided. Moreover, students are also taught how to unveil the unique vulnerabilities a given network has to various security threats enabling a Cisco Certified Network Associate (Security) to effectively come up with countermeasures.
Many companies are overly sensitive when it comes to the security of their networks. Security threats and breaches often can result in catastrophic business scenarios that may literally ruin an organisation. With hackers continuing to become a major threat to the company and firm networks across the world, the demand for CCNA security professionals is presently at an all-time high.
Job Opportunities
Despite Cisco CCNA security certification only being an associate level Cisco certification, there are quite a number of job opportunities that the certificate qualifies you for. Overall, these jobs include:
- Network Security Support Engineer
- Security Administrator
- Network Security Specialist
These are entry level jobs but the compensation to expect is quite good and can be a perfect boost to your career. In addition, your CCNA Security certification is one of the key prerequisites of undertaking a course in CCNP Security. You will have a chance to occupy more advanced networking security jobs once you obtain your CCNP Security certification.
