New credential aims to measure AI security skills
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One of cybersecurity's best-known certification organizations is developing a credential for the AI era.
Why it matters: As AI becomes part of more cybersecurity jobs, employers want better ways to evaluate workers' AI security skills and workers want better ways to gain those skills.
Driving the news: ISC2, the nonprofit behind the widely used CISSP credential, is developing a certification focused on securing AI systems, managing AI-related threats and mitigating AI risks.
- The certification's scope and target audience will be determined over the next five months as ISC2 works with cybersecurity professionals to define the program, ISC2 CEO Scott Beale tells Axios.
The big picture: ISC2's certifications — like CISSP — are among the industry's best-known credentials, and employers often use them as a proxy for technical knowledge and experience.
Between the lines: ISC2 decided AI security has become distinct enough to warrant its own certification instead of simply expanding the AI content already included in its existing exams.
- The organization added AI-related questions across all nine of its current certifications last year, but Beale says members and employers continued asking for a standalone, vendor-neutral credential focused specifically on AI security.
- The certification is expected to target professionals with some cybersecurity experience, though not necessarily veteran practitioners, and could also appeal to AI professionals who increasingly need security expertise, Beale says.
- "Members wanted it, industry has been expressing interest in it," he says. "If it's not the first question that people have asked me over the last six months, it's the second or third."
What's next: ISC2 is recruiting volunteers from across the cybersecurity community to help define the body of knowledge and write exam questions.
- The organization hopes to begin beta testing the certification in early 2027.
Go deeper: Employers warn cyber job seekers away from certification "alphabet soup"
