So you’ve got a shiny cert hanging on your wall. CISSP, CEH, whatever the alphabet soup says. Congrats — you memorized a PDF and regurgitated it under fluorescent lights. But here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud:
Most cybersecurity certifications are nothing but polished mediocrity.
They don’t prove skill.
They don’t prove intuition.
They sure as hell don’t prove you can protect a network when real chaos hits.
They prove you sat still, read a book, and passed a standardized test designed to make HR feel warm and fuzzy.
Meanwhile, the real threats don’t give a damn about your exam score.
They exploit misconfigured systems, outdated firewalls, and human stupidity — the things your cert never taught you to handle under pressure.
I’ve seen certified engineers lock themselves out of their own infrastructure.
I’ve seen “ethical hackers” who can’t even write a damn script without ChatGPT holding their hand.
And I’ve seen real warriors — uncertified, self-taught ghosts — silently securing entire networks while the paper tigers parade around in meetings.
The industry is drowning in titles and starving for actual skill.
Hiring managers drool over acronyms and ignore the hackers who live and breathe this war.
Companies build castles of compliance, not fortresses of resilience.
Certs became currency — but the value is inflated, and the attackers know it.
Let’s stop glorifying the laminated lies.
Let’s stop confusing qualification with competence.
Let’s start testing people on battlefield reality, not textbook trivia.
You want a real test?
Take your certified engineer and throw them in a live-fire scenario — let’s see who walks out.
Spoiler: it won’t be the one who paid $3,000 for a bootcamp and a participation trophy.
This is war.
And you don’t win wars with pretty badges — you win them with grit, instinct, and experience.
– DeadSwitch | The Cyber Ghost
“In silence, we rise. In the switch, we fade.”
Tom's IT Cafe 