Cisco is offering a new Cybersecurity Specialist badge and updates to its CCNP Security Certification, including a series of new training courses and exams.

They (CSCO) said that its 2014 Annual Security Report revealed about a million new security professionals are needed worldwide to rescue the ever-growing cyber threat.

“More and more skills are needed and the threats are evolving,” Stewart said. “We can build the best products but if we don’t also work together —universities, companies and certainly, technological designers—with the best training, we’re only getting halfway.”

The CCNP certification maps to the job role of the Cisco Network Security Engineer answerable for security in Routers, Switches,Hubs and other networking devices and appliances. CCNP-equipped engineers choose, deploy, support and troubleshoot firewalls, VPNS and IDS/IPS solutions for their networking areas.

This new Cybersecurity Specialist Certification is aimed at providing Network Security Analysts with the latest threat detection and mitigation skills, leveraging advanced security solutions from Cisco and other providers.

The new training course and related exam for the Cybersecurity Specialist—aiming on event monitoring, security event alerts, traffic analysis and incident replies—is Securing Cisco Networks with Problem Detection and Analysis.

The new exams will be scheduled  from Jan. 24 and students can register through Pearson VUE.
The last date to test for current CCNP Security Exams is April 21.

Cisco also is retiring five security specialist certifications, effective April 22, including the
Cisco ASA Specialist,
Cisco Firewall Security Specialist, Cisco IOS Security Specialist,
Cisco IPS Security Specialist and Cisco VPN Security Specialist. Exams for these specializations no longer will be offered after that date.