Common questions
Before you start
If your question isn't here, email me directly — usually a same-day reply.
What's in your course catalog?
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Three tiers. Essentials ($79 each) are 25-50 minute all-staff courses — the annual training your workforce needs. Role-specific ($199 each) are 45-50 minute intermediate courses for leaders, managers, and specialists in finance, HR, IT, help desk, and executive roles. The Human Factor Masterclass Series ($349 each) is advanced 90-minute masterclasses for working security practitioners and leaders on the behavior, psychology, and culture behind modern breaches.
What's the difference between the three tiers?
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Beginner courses teach every employee the day-to-day habits that stop account takeover, phishing, ransomware, and privacy mistakes. Intermediate courses teach leaders and specialists in a specific role — finance, HR, help desk, cloud administration, executive leadership — the role-specific decisions that matter. Advanced masterclasses teach the frameworks and mental models behind modern security problems. They're not more technical; they're deeper in reasoning and judgment.
What's The Human Factor Masterclass Series?
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Four advanced courses on the behavior, psychology, and organizational culture that determine whether an organization is breached. Covers adversary psychology, security culture, behavior design for security programs, and the cognitive discipline of threat hunting and incident response. Written for working CISOs, security leaders, SOC leads, incident responders, and the executive and HR partners who shape security culture. Each masterclass runs about 90 minutes with a scenario-based final assessment.
Which course should I take first?
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If you're new to this material, start with Cybersecurity Awareness: Foundations — a 30-minute course that covers passwords and MFA, phishing, device safety, safe browsing, ransomware, and incident reporting. If you're a manager or executive, add AI Governance for Managers and Executives. If you're a CISO or security leader, start with any of the Human Factor masterclasses — Security Culture: A Leadership Masterclass is the natural first.
What's the difference between this site and the free one at computersecurity.us?
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computersecurity.us is a free 5-module cybersecurity awareness program — great for individuals who just want the basics. This site (training.computersecurity.us) is the paid LMS with the full catalog, B2B team features, progress tracking, and verifiable certificates. Same instructor, deeper content, three tiers to match your role.
Can I buy a single course, or do I have to subscribe?
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Yes — every course is a one-time purchase. Subscriptions are only for B2B team plans. As an individual, you pay once for a course and it's yours.
How long does a typical course take?
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Beginner all-staff courses run 25–40 minutes. Intermediate role-specific courses run 40–50 minutes. Advanced masterclasses run about 90 minutes. The course-detail page lists the exact runtime before you buy.
Do your courses cover SLED and government-specific scenarios?
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Yes. Scenarios across the catalog include state agencies, municipalities, counties, school districts, and public colleges and universities — alongside enterprise examples. Several courses are explicitly in the SLED Cybersecurity and Data Protection category. Compliance frames referenced across the catalog include CJIS, FERPA, HIPAA, and CMMC.
Are the certificates recognized by employers?
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Our certificates are completion-based and verifiable — every certificate has a public URL the recipient can share. They're respected for what they are: proof you completed a specific course from a working CISO with 30+ years in the field. They're not a substitute for industry certifications like CompTIA Security+ or CISSP, but they pair well with those for résumé and audit purposes.
Who's behind this?
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A working CISO — Carl B. Johnson, with over 30 years in compliance and cybersecurity and 16+ published books including an eight-domain CISSP exam prep series. Carl writes every course drawing on real situations from real environments, and answers every email personally. If you write us, you're writing the person who made the thing.
Can my company expense an individual course?
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Yes. Every purchase generates a proper invoice with your company info, which you can submit to expensing. If you're planning to train more than 3–4 people though, the team plans at our business page are almost always cheaper per seat.