ISC2
Reddit take
AI summary of the Reddit excerpts below — not a quote
ISC2 is currently viewed with significant skepticism and frustration by its community, primarily due to administrative inefficiencies and a perceived shift toward profit-driven motives. While the organization is credited for having a flat-rate maintenance fee structure, these positives are heavily outweighed by reports of poor customer service, slow processing times for audits, and obscure exam logic.
Pros
- Flat-rate annual maintenance fees regardless of how many certifications a member holds.
- Continuing Professional Education (CPE) requirements are viewed as less restrictive than some competing organizations.
- Occasional availability of discount codes through persistent support communication.
Cons
- Extremely slow administrative response times, with reports of ignored emails and calls.
- Rigid and sometimes illogical systems for counting professional experience.
- Exam questions are often criticized for being obscurely written or requiring a specific 'ISC2 way' of thinking that may not align with broader industry standards.
- Billing issues where payments are deducted but services or bundles are not immediately credited.
- Perceived lack of transparency and communication from the board of directors to the general membership.
Caveats
- There is a strong sentiment among some members that the organization is becoming a 'money grab' and relies too heavily on volunteer work from certification holders.
- Some users find the certification content to be overly US-centric and arbitrary in its choice of definitions (e.g., NIST standards).
Best for
- Cybersecurity professionals seeking industry-standard certifications who can tolerate significant administrative friction.
- Those holding multiple certifications who want to minimize maintenance fees via a flat-rate structure.
Avoid if
- You require responsive and timely customer support for certification or billing issues.
- You prefer certification bodies with highly transparent, globally-neutral exam criteria.
This summary uses balanced time weighting with about a 18-month half-life. The evidence is older (median age of 566 days), which may impact the current accuracy of administrative performance claims, though the sentiment is consistently negative across the 15-mention sample.
Sentiment
2 positive (13%) · 0 mixed (0%) · 13 negative (87%)
Trust + time weighted score: -69% · raw score -73%
What redditors said (10 of 15)
I've tried calling and emailing ISC2 but have not heard a response.
Not to mention we have to answer the way ISC2 says what’s right or try to decipher the question because it was re-written so obscure and it being called “critical thinking”.
ISC2 isn't $AN$, who almost requires you take another of their courses to get enough CPEs. [...] ISC2's fee is also flat rate, regardless of how many of their certs you hold.
Crazy, they don’t count the initial month you start a job so I gotta back it up to the month before to count the full month. Their system is ridiculous.
The money from the card was deducted but the isc2 folks are telling that I have not purchased the bundle
Isc2 went all out money grab and in doing that cheapened the achievement…
This makes me so mad. I tried to send an email or snail mail to the board and I was told they don’t communicate with members. ISC2 then told me that the board was fully supportive of this designation and its cost to members. What a crock!
I think that ISC2 was a massive fail here. I asked if I could sent a letter or email to the board of directors and was told no.
I’m not so much bothered by being audited, I’m more bothered by the snail’s pace that isc2 seems to work at.
I just got a 10% discount code after communicating with them for about 2 weeks.