Certifications serve great purpose in the world of cybersecurity and in CTI. They do a great job at showcasing your knowledge of key principles. If an employer needs to see real-world application of those principles, and they may, I HIGHLY recommend starting a Medium blog about CTI. Create a post about what you’re learning. Create another post about the Diamond Model. Create another post detailing how you would map a specific intrusion to the Diamond Model. Talk about if it matches a big time company’s mapping. If it doesn’t, discuss why that may be (access to paid feeds, industry knowledge, trust groups, etc.) and what you’ve learned from the experience. Make sure you add your recommendations at the end. How would an enterprise company prevent that intrusion? How would a start up? Would this intrusion matter to macOS users? Would it matter to gov/telecom/financial/SaaS… you probably get it by now.

Lastly, below are CTI certs. If you’re just starting your cybersecurity journey, I would NOT recommend these. Hit me up if that’s you and you’re looking for a little bit more tailored advice!

The Paul Jerimy Security Certification Roadmap

This is the most comprehensive overview of any and all certifications for a given cybersecurity discipline. CTI sits on the edge of Incident Handling and Pen Testing in that chart. Check it out for more certs than could possibly fit on this page!

SANS GCTI $999 USD

Truly “You get what you pay for.” This is the most comprehensive and most respected certification. It’s accredited and approved by the US Department of Defense. A practice exam alone is $400 USD. The course that goes with it that you can do in person at a SANS training event or on demand is $8780 USD.

EC-Council Certified Threat Intelligence Analyst (CTIA)

Probably the second most common CTI certification. A Single On-Demand Certification Course starts at $999 and Unlimited On-Demand Certification Courses start at $3499.

Mandiant CTI Analysis Certification $250USD Cert, prep classes more $$

Mandiant carries a very highly regarded name and this certification holds weight. I took their Cyber Intelligence Production course and absolutely loved it.