Certified_Social_Engineering_Prevention_Specialist
Certified Social Engineering Prevention Specialist (CSEPS) refers to both an individual Mitnick Security Consulting certification and a broader professional certification program.
The CSEPS program currently offers one type of certification. To attain this certification, a candidate must attend a CSEPS training course and pass the exam proctored at completion.
The training program focuses primarily on how Social Engineering works through the use of numerous case histories and a detailed breakdown of the psychological principles related to influence. It more specifically focuses on how a malicious hacker or information thief uses Social Engineering and/or Pretexting to obtain illicit access to computer systems by duping employees, and what can be done to minimize social engineering based attacks in an organization.[citation needed]
The course and exam costs approximately US$2300.00 per person. The course is two days in length. The exams takes between 1 and 2 hours to complete and consists of between 50-90 multiple choice questions and an essay section dealing with specific actions taken to prevent Social Engineering in a proposed scenario.[citation needed]
The exam was first designed by Kevin Mitnick and Alexis Kasperavičius in 2004, with assistance from various experts in the psychology field.[1]
In 2020 Mitnick partnered with security awareness training firm KnowBe4 and the CSEPS course material and components became the basis of the KnowBe4 Social Engineering Security Awareness Training program.[2][3]