Infosec Institute

I was required to take this security awareness training as part of the cyber security initiatives of the organization I work with. As a technical person and as a person that trains and documents software concepts to end users this training was difficult to sit through. Dated cheesy graphics, poor sound quality, sexist language and graphics "IT guy", monotonous The Office style videos to watch where one actor is in the bathroom taking a dump and picks up a jump drive. I do not need or want to see someone's pants around his ankles to tell a story about security. I did not have to pay and felt ripped off. There are no women pictured in roles of authority only guys in suits. Image attached shows women shapes not even people on social media then running to use the unsecured WIFI.

Left a message so will hopefully get a return call. Thanks

the quality of their training materials is insanely low! I will never ever go there again, the worst training experience ever!!

I don’t know what time my class is. If it’s happening or not do to lack of people signing up

InfoSec boasts that 94% of their students pass. What an excellent sales ploy. I pass you the money and I've got a 94% chance of passing and I'm off to a career making over a hundred thousand dollars. The reality is that no one ever questions that 94% which is a totally manufactured number. If you do your due diligence and research the reviews that this company has, you'll find those who've ponied up the money, wasted their money only to be career set back by this scam organization.

August 3, 2015 I am writing to officially document and express my extreme dissatisfaction following my recent experience as a training participant at the InfoSec Institute. After the first few days and inadequate facilitation, it was abundantly clear that the training would fail to live up to its claim of a 93% pass rating, hands-on training and Microsoft partner experience. I called the contact number on the web site and sent at least eight e-mails regarding the fact that every single person in my class failed the first exam. This seems like an unusually high number given your self-proclaimed pass ratings. Other students did the same with no response from anyone at all the first 24 hours. After a lack of response and unclear direction on how to move forward with the training, I was forced to re-arrange my travel plans and return to work where I had to explain to my leadership team why the training did not meet my expectations or deliver what it claims to offer. A few important things to note regarding the training, materials and instructors, that are backed by others in my class. • The entire class failed the first 70-410 exam Wednesday afternoon/evening. • The training prep class did not follow the syllabus or schedule as advertised. I was given 3 different syllabuses and none matched. • The website indicated 9 full days of intense instruction with no outside distractions yet we were let go every day before 5 p.m. and one day as early as 4:15 pm. • The website claims a proprietary Intense School Server 2012 R2 boot camp is designed to assist you in gaining a level of proficiency that can only be taught through hands-on labs, simulations, and the real-world application of skills. The class did not offer one hands-on lab, or one real-world scenario. • The website claims InfoSec is the most-awarded Microsoft training company. InfoSec is a Microsoft Gold Partner and recently won the Editor's Choice award for best virtualization Training. Recognition at this level is the result of thousands of quality student experiences in our boot camps. Yet, the class used third-party practice questions from a website named Ensurepass. Via the website the instructor only had one user account that the entire class used. This alone is a violation of the license agreement with Ensurepass. We had great difficulty even getting the software to work. One of the students actually figured out the issue and brought it to the instructor’s attention. • Because of difficulties accessing the website, we did not get the practice questions until the second day of training. As a result we had less time to study. • The class room projector has proved to be nothing more than a distraction in the class as nothing on the instructor’s screen displays with clarity on the screen. • Our books for training from Skillpipe were not provided until late on Monday and not at the beginning of class. There were also issues with the software related to the Skillpipe books. This did not allow us to follow along during the first day of class. • The exam’s practice questions from an outside vendor we were given were not the same questions as are in the actual tests. Needless to say, the 93 percent pass rate was not achieved. The end result is that out of the 41 tests that should have been taken, only one test was passed and most of the students did not even take additional tests because of the lack of study material made available to them to be adequately prepared. I still have not received an actual phone call from the company now nearly three weeks after the incident. I did receive one email that stated the following: Hi James, Our company policy for students who leave a course early is that the student is not entitled to a refund, a resit or any travel re-imbursement. I heard from my boss regarding your request and we are offering a resit of the MCSE course with updated VCEs and 2nd-3rd shot vouchers for the first exam. We will not be updating the courseware since the material hasn’t changed. We will not reimburse you for the travel. I don’t believe I, or any of the other students that left, should be penalized for leaving the training early/before completion because I couldn’t get in touch with someone from the Institute itself to help direct me in my search for answers and next steps. The instructor was no help either and knew very little himself, saying himself, “I’ve only been employees for two months.” After little response from your company to find a resolution, I am now involving my attorney and am seeking a full refund for the following: • Training cost $4,500.00 • Travel reimbursement $1,500.00 • Meals and misc. $ 250.00 • Lost wages $2,000.00 Sincerely, James Sullivan james.sullivan35@***.com

I took the CCENT/CCNA/CCNA Security/CCDA Quad Four training course online. My organization has paid for NUMEROUS cyber-related/IT training courses for me over the past eight years, and this was, no doubt, the worst training course I've ever taken. The PowerPoint slides in the training videos have SO many spelling errors and some of the audio doesn't even match up with the slides on the screen. The formatting of many slides is terrible, and they look like a quick copy/paste from elsewhere with no reformatting to make them look professional. Some slides are out of focus, and some slides are off the video, so you can't see everything that's on the slide. This course is nothing more than a summary of the material in the Cisco Press books for these certifications. Also, this is the only training course I've taken that didn't provide written study materials. You can get this printed material, but you have to pay extra for it. You get the Cisco Press books with the course, but you can purchase them individually for around $100-$150. You can buy the Cisco Network Simulator software for CCNA from Cisco Press for about $120 to practice your hands-on skills. My advice: Read the Cisco Press and the Sybex related books. Also, purchase network simulator software. The Cisco Press software is decent, or Boson makes a great simulator. These are the materials I used successfully study. Good luck!

I attended the PMP boot camp on-line in October. They say they have a guaranteed pass rate of 99%. Really? I prepared a great deal for the exam outside of class. I did not pass. They say that if you don't pass they will assist you with a study plan, moving forward... I have reached out and heard nothing. They did provide the 2nd voucher, but with the rate they charge, why don't they honor their marketing. You can re-do their video series, but there is NOTHING in this that prepares you for the exam. The exam has bizarre questions. Find another Boot Camp that holds true to what they say.

This class is certainly did not meet my expectations. I wish previous people would have reviewed this course more so I could have avoided infoSec Institute. Overall: The company itself seemed to be just going thru the paces. They sent an email during and after the class asking how things were and how they were exceeding my expectations. I replied to each email and eval request. Never received any response about how poor their service had been. Online: They claim to be an "online" institute. They run a traditional class room in an hotel conf room and throw up a Lync web conf with a cheap webcam. You can see the whiteboard or slides. The instructor even only responded to any of the online questions 50% of the time. There were several technical problems where the online students were dropped, couldn't hear, or couldn't see. The instructor also dropped off the internet at times. They charge the same onsite or online. Instructor: Time management - very poor. 8 chapters / 6 days. Took two days to get thru one chapter. He spend a large part of the first day just talking about himself. Then would spend hours on just one or two slides, then rush thru 20. Class started late every day. one day 45 mins late. Class would also come back from breaks late. Many days he stopped the class early. As we got closer to the end and he noticed that we were very far behind he spend up to the point where most the class couldn't keep track which page we were on. Depth of knowledge: Poor. He regularly spend large chucks of time explaining something backwards. When a student finally got him to realized he was wrong the reaction was kinda "oops" and then he just moved to the next subject. He was often making up definitions to acronyms. When it came to newer technology such as cloud he was just dead wrong. Presentation: Poor. He would regularly forget there was on online class. We couldn't always here him or the rest of the class. at best we were hearing one-sided conversations. People would ask questions and he would just repeat what he side over and over, not answering the question or re-phasing. Several times he laughed at somebody asking a questions because they didn't understand what he said. Many subjects in the syllabus were not even covered because of lack of time.

This is a terrible company. They are full of lies, un-ethical practices, and un-answered phone calls. I learned of Infosec through a quote a friend got. After I gave my credit card info, new information came out about the course in the same phone call and told the assistant not to charge my card… of course they did…. Then, I had to pull it out of them when/how I can schedule my exam. I received an email that told me to create a login for PearsonVue(which I already had from previous certifications), identify the date and time I want to take the test, immediately email them the date/time and my login credentials to my PearsonVue account and they would login and pay for it. Talk about shady. The CAP detailed syllabus says “Students are responsible for registering and paying for the exam directly with ISC2. This should be taken care of as soon as possible to avoid additional fees or an over-booked exam. Actual exam proctored by ISC2.” The CAP online bootcamp class advertised that it included a CAP exam voucher and a re-sit guarantee. When I asked for a voucher, they said they are not given vouchers. I called PearsonVue to find out more info and they told me that ISC2 will only allow ISC2 certified companies to issue vouchers. Why would Infosec lie about test vouchers twice? When I called for a refund I was told I was going to be charged 20%. WTF? I have called and called and called. I was finally able to get a hold of my point of contacts manager’s voicemail and left a message. No returned calls. This is a terrible company. I just want my money back.

I am writing to dispute the $3899 charge for a 13 day class that I purchased from InfoSec Institute to get Microsoft technical certification. I chose Infosec because they advertised that they have a 93%+ pass rate for all the students that enroll in the course, hands-on training and Microsoft partner experience. I believe that Infosec falsely advertised the processes, services and tools that would be used in class and failed to deliver what was promised. After the first three days of class we had the first test in which only one person passed the test out of 12 students, this was far below the 93% pass rate advertised. At that point is was abundantly clear that there was some sort of problem and I didn’t believe that InfoSec wasn’t going to be able to deliver the quality of training required to complete the certification. I tried to engage my sale person Jim Boyle numerous times to express my concerns but never received a call from him or any other representative of the company. Instead I did finally get an email stating that “I should worry about it, that I had another chance at passing the test through the second shot test and that the class was just panicking” . Only after numerous complaints from the other students did the instructor out and say that Microsoft had changed the exams and the material and VCE’s that we were using to study didn’t match what was on the exams. The director of operations Scott Fredrickson called into the class after a day of silence (which I recorded) to say that they were caught off guard by the change and would stand behind their training and would do what was needed to fix things. He encouraged the students not to leave because we already blocked off the time and we could still get some benefit out of the class. He also said that InfoSec deal with students on a one on one bases to come up with individualized solution to meet the student’s needs. I stayed in the class as Infosec requested and gave a 100% effort into the class and studying to hopes that I could possibly still get some of the certification. The end result was that out of the 60 tests that should have been taken and passed by the class, I was the only student in class that passed a single test. Most of the students did not even take any additional tests after the first attempt because of lack of direction and that the study material that made available to them to was inadequately prepared. When I returned home after the class was complete I tried to engage Scott Fredrickson to request a full refund of the class as well as the cost of my hotel and travel expenses. But every attempt to contact him on the phone I would only get his voicemail. So I’d follow up with an email stating my complaint about the failures of the class and ask what InfoSec was going to do for me. These emails were usually responded to with vague details about them reviewing the material. These are just some of the discrepancies between what they advertised about the course, the material and expertise. • The website advertised a proprietary Intense School Server 2012 R2 boot camp is designed to assist you in gaining a level of proficiency that can only be taught through hands-on labs, simulations, and the real-world application of skills. o There wasn’t any time allocated to do any labs nor did we have adequate equipment to perform any labs. The instructor did try to use his own servers hosted on Rackspace but incapable capable of adequately demonstrating all of concepts. • The courseware wasn’t proprietary, the exam questions were from another company called Ensurepass. There was at least 20% of the exam questions weren’t covered by the material that was provided or the practice test questions. The Prep test were also riddled with wrong answers, discrepancies in the explanation sections or didn’t have any explanations at all. To add the problem, all of the students were using the same copy of software which may not have even been licensed to the company. This slowed the class from getting legitimate updates to the practice exams. • The entire class except for one student who was remote failed the first exam. I was the only student on site that passed any of the five test, most students didn’t attempt to take any of the exams after the first one. Five students withdrew from the class because they felt that Infosec wasn’t providing what was promised. • The website claims InfoSec is the most-awarded Microsoft training company. InfoSec is a Microsoft Gold Partner and recently won the Editor's Choice award for best virtualization Training. o I checked the Microsoft Partner portal and InfoSec is not listed as a Gold Partner, they are a Silver Partner. • The course material wasn’t available until the end of the first day which drastically reduced the amount of we had to prepare for the first test. • The amount of Class time and when the test would be administered that was outlined in course syllabus wasn’t followed. see attached documents Course syllabus o The website indicated 9 full days of intense instruction with no outside distractions yet we were let go every day before 5 p.m. and sometimes as early one day as early as 2:00 pm. • Inadequate equipment o Projector was poor quality that made everything fuzzy. o Laptop computers weren’t configured for wireless network and I had to finish the installation and configuration. o Internet connection was very slow and unreliable. ( I would be kicked off internet multiple times a day). • Breakfast, Lunch and snacks provided on each day of class Stay well fed with Breakfast and Lunch catered in to the classroom. An assortment of snacks and drinks are available in class as well to keep you refreshed. ( See Website and course outline document). o Breakfast was never provided and the drinks and snacks were water with Chex mix and oatmeal bars. • I left the class without taking all of the test and they did not provide me with any of the Exam vouchers and when I ask the instructor about the vouchers, he said he didn’t know how we get them. The overall experience was a total waste of time and money, they made no attempt to correct the problem after the differences were discovered. They have horrible customer service, I is practically impossible to actually get someone on the telephone. The standard practice for them is to respond through email making vague statements. James Tarver tarver_j@***.net

THE INSTRUCTOR WAS READING OFF POWERPOINT SLIDES. THE WHOLE CLASS FAILED 410 EXAM. THE MAIN OFFICE WOULD NOT TAKE ANY OF OUR CALLS. THEY ARE IN IT FOR THE MONEY THEY DONT CARE ABOUT TECHING THE MATERIAL. INSTRUCTORS WERE WORKING THERE FOR 3 MONTHS. TEACHING SKILLS HORRIBLE. WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS PLACE TO ANYONE. YOUR BETTER OFF GOING TO MICROSOFT AND WATCH VIDEOS (MICROSOFT VIRTUAL ACEDEMY) YOULL GET MORE OUT OF THAT THEN THIS COURSE. DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY. WE HAD TO WAIT FOR CEO HE WAS OUT OF THE COUNTRY TO GET AN ANSWER ARE YOU SERIOUS NO ONE CAN MAKE AN EXECUTIVE DECISION WITHOUT CEO? BELIEVE ME SAVE YOUR MONEY MOVE ON. IT USED TO BE A GREAT COMPANY FOR TRAINING NOT AFTER NEW CEO BOUGHT THIS PLACE NOW IT IS A JOKE.

August 3, 2015 I am writing to officially document and express my extreme dissatisfaction following my recent experience as a training participant at the InfoSec Institute. After the first few days and inadequate facilitation, it was abundantly clear that the training would fail to live up to its claim of a 93% pass rating, hands-on training and Microsoft partner experience. I called the contact number on the web site and sent at least eight e-mails regarding the fact that every single person in my class failed the first exam. This seems like an unusually high number given your self-proclaimed pass ratings. Other students did the same with no response from anyone at all the first 24 hours. After a lack of response and unclear direction on how to move forward with the training, I was forced to re-arrange my travel plans and return to work where I had to explain to my leadership team why the training did not meet my expectations or deliver what it claims to offer. A few important things to note regarding the training, materials and instructors, that are backed by others in my class. • The entire class failed the first 70-410 exam Wednesday afternoon/evening. • The training prep class did not follow the syllabus or schedule as advertised. I was given 3 different syllabuses and none matched. • The website indicated 9 full days of intense instruction with no outside distractions yet we were let go every day before 5 p.m. and one day as early as 4:15 pm. • The website claims a proprietary Intense School Server 2012 R2 boot camp is designed to assist you in gaining a level of proficiency that can only be taught through hands-on labs, simulations, and the real-world application of skills. The class did not offer one hands-on lab, or one real-world scenario. • The website claims InfoSec is the most-awarded Microsoft training company. InfoSec is a Microsoft Gold Partner and recently won the Editor's Choice award for best virtualization Training. Recognition at this level is the result of thousands of quality student experiences in our boot camps. Yet, the class used third-party practice questions from a website named Ensurepass. Via the website the instructor only had one user account that the entire class used. This alone is a violation of the license agreement with Ensurepass. We had great difficulty even getting the software to work. One of the students actually figured out the issue and brought it to the instructor’s attention. • Because of difficulties accessing the website, we did not get the practice questions until the second day of training. As a result we had less time to study. • The class room projector has proved to be nothing more than a distraction in the class as nothing on the instructor’s screen displays with clarity on the screen. • Our books for training from Skillpipe were not provided until late on Monday and not at the beginning of class. There were also issues with the software related to the Skillpipe books. This did not allow us to follow along during the first day of class. • The exam’s practice questions from an outside vendor we were given were not the same questions as are in the actual tests. Needless to say, the 93 percent pass rate was not achieved. The end result is that out of the 41 tests that should have been taken, only one test was passed and most of the students did not even take additional tests because of the lack of study material made available to them to be adequately prepared. I still have not received an actual phone call from the company now nearly three weeks after the incident. I did receive one email that stated the following: Hi James, Our company policy for students who leave a course early is that the student is not entitled to a refund, a resit or any travel re-imbursement. I heard from my boss regarding your request and we are offering a resit of the MCSE course with updated VCEs and 2nd-3rd shot vouchers for the first exam. We will not be updating the courseware since the material hasn’t changed. We will not reimburse you for the travel. I don’t believe I, or any of the other students that left, should be penalized for leaving the training early/before completion because I couldn’t get in touch with someone from the Institute itself to help direct me in my search for answers and next steps. The instructor was no help either and knew very little himself, saying himself, “I’ve only been employees for two months.” After little response from your company to find a resolution, I am now involving my attorney and am seeking a full refund for the following: • Training cost $4,500.00 • Travel reimbursement $1,500.00 • Meals and misc. $ 250.00 • Lost wages $2,000.00 Sincerely, James Sullivan james.sullivan@***.imptob.com

if you are looking for a boot camp this is not the place for you. they are very unorganized the pass rate is bull the whole class failed today the 70-410 and it is the worst boot camp I have taken. Nothing is ready before class go the to the location everything is done on the fly. The internet connection is embarrassing to come to a IT course and the connection is a Joke. The class is a 0% pass rate for the MCSA2012R2 out of a class of 10 - 0 passed the test. Save your money go somewhere else. if I could do it all over again I would not have came here. The instructors are all new so they have no idea on how things are supposed to be setup... this would not have been my 1st choice for training. I will be reaching out to my sales rep. They don't even have a legal copy of VCE practice questions to give to students to practice the test. I am very unhappy for the price of the course and no caffeine given to the class to keep them up whoever is heading these boot camps up need help you need caffeine and sugar to keep everyone's attention instead there is kids bottle waters, Chex mix, the meals are not even enough for the whole class it is kind of embarrassing. I would be very embarrassed if I was heading these courses up. The instructors only have basic knowledge on the courses when you ask a question then you get the O I am going to have to look into that. I give them a 0 rating. They run these like a real military bootcamp not a class material bootcamp it is a joke. What a waste of money. I will bad mouth them to all my friends and I am sure the other classmates will do the same. stay away you can do better just studying at home with CBT nuggets or CVE's. not knowledgable

Before I sign up for their CISM bootcamp I was told and they advertised that their instructor had conducted many previous same bootcamp sessions with great success, which led me to believe this would be the ideal class to immerse myself in a week of intensive training. On the 3rd day of class the instructor revealed he had obtained his certification just two months prior to the class, which in no way he was qualified to conducted many sessions prior as they advertised. Most of the daily bootcamp activities that were indicated on the site did not actually happen. As an example, the training was advertised/sold with the understanding that the class would be from 9AM up to 5 PM. The first day we were done by 4:30 PM and from the second day onward, every day was done by 12:30 PM. The class materials were illegible and difficult to read and thru-out the 5 days bootcamp classes, the instructor would simply just reading the slides content from the projector word-by-word!! (which is the same printed on their text book handout). When the students asked for some real-life examples, the instructor couldn't provide any explanations which clearly indicate the instructor's lack of experience in the domains. Several complained made to instructor about the materials and teaching methods but nothing got changed. On the 2nd day afternoon, we found out this so called "test preparation" session is by using ISACA's official test database CD and on a projector to simulated the practice tests. This is not only violated the ISACA's copyrights policy but after the students found out about the database CD can be purchased from ISACA website (which the instructor mentioned in the class), more half of the class decided to stop showing up for these so called "practice exam" sessions. Right after the training I emailed directly to Infosec Institute and left several phone messages with specifics on the failure to deliver the class as advertised by seeking proper compensation but never heard back a word. Infosec Institue decided to ignore my good faith in attempt to resolve the issue and they refuse to made any attempts to correct the failures of the class. I hope others will exercise great caution to pursue any training classes with this organization. Don't bother with this training organization as there are many other bootcamp organization.