5 Top Data Recovery Certifications

There are scores of cybersecurity certifications and relatively few for data recovery. But think about it for a moment. Many of the successful breaches require sophisticated data recovery actions. Every disaster, blackout, system failure, or accidental/intentional data loss incident calls for the recovery of data. Clearly, it is a subject that demands more attention. 

Fortunately, we have been able to find some of the best data recovery training and certification options out there. Many of them teach the basics of recovering deleted, inaccessible, lost, corrupted, damaged, or incorrectly formatted data.

Whether data experiences physical or logical loss on hard disk drives, solid-state drives, USB flash drives, magnetic tapes, CDs, DVDs, RAID, or other systems, recovery is vital.

Here are the top certification and training courses available on data recovery: 

1. Certified Data Recovery Professional (CDRP)

Certified Data Recovery Professional is a two-day course done in the classroom or online. It teaches knowledge surrounding data recovery, including retrieving lost data from damaged or partially destroyed hard drives, solid-state media, and removable media. Logical recovery methods are taught across Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Students also get to know file format recognition tools, how to clear passwords on a password-protected drive, and resolution of kernel or driver issues with a Linux bootable disk. 

At the end of this course, students will take the IACRB CDRP exam. Firebrand offers a combined lecture, lab, and review methodology to increase the pace of training.

This course is ideal for information security officers and managers, network administrators, windows administrators, forensics investigators, and anyone else interested in building data recovery skills. It is recommended that applicants at least know how to perform beginner-level logical recoveries of drives, know Windows, and have familiarity with computer hardware. 

2. InfoSec Data Recovery

Infosec’s Data Recovery training course is hands-on and addresses logical and physical data recovery. It teaches the fundamentals of hardware data recovery, so the student can diagnose dead drives and bring them back to life. Logical recovery for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, RAID arrays, and Exchange server solid state flash NAND drives is also covered. 

This online training course includes a shipment of software that is loaded onto the student’s computer for completion of over 30 hours of hands-on lab exercises. These are installed as virtual machines (VMs) and include hundreds of tools and scripts to perform the exercises. 

The course is made up of 47 online modules taught by an instructor, and it is a good way to prepare for CDRP certification. Alternatively, students can choose to participate in the bootcamp version of the training, which takes five days. When you purchase InfoSec Data Recovery Training Online, you automatically get an exam voucher for the CDRP certification.

Prerequisites include a firm understanding of the Windows operating system and computer hardware. Those who complete the course and exam will have the skills to successfully recover data from damaged or partially destroyed devices and systems.

3. Data Empires

The data recovery training course at Data Empires is designed to give students fundamental knowledge of repairing and recovering data from various storage devices like hard disks, flash drives, solid-state drives, and memory cards. The course, taught by experts with several years of experience, teaches students how to apply knowledge on repairing and recovering data. 

Training is split into three modules. One deals with mechanical failure. It covers hardware components, symptoms of failures, and repair practices, and it includes a variety of techniques to identify the mechanical problem (head stuck, motor jam, head damage), an introduction to head replacement tools, and the head and platter replacement process.

Other modules go into a similar level of detail on logical data recovery, firmware data recovery, hard drive basics (SATA, PATA, FAT32, NTFS, disk structure, etc.), and electronic failure data recovery. It combines theoretical knowledge as well as hands-on learning with sample case studies

Training is intended for businesses related to computer and laptop repair shops, universities and educational centers, IT scrap buyers, hard drive refurbishers, and ethical hackers. 

4. Data Governance Mastery 

The management of data is a basic skill that underlies all analysis. Those involved in data recovery certainly need knowledge of how to conduct physical and logical recovery processes. But those with in-depth knowledge of how data is managed will be able to take their skills to another level.

DataManagementU.com’s Data Governance Certification is available via its Data Governance Mastery program. This course guides individuals in studying all the best practices and concepts for implementing data governance. It helps the learner become a master in data governance. There are no prerequisites. The course, which can be delivered virtually or on-demand, consists of 24 learning modules with 15–20 minutes of content each. 

5. Elastic 

The ability to search and find problems is another skill of real value in data recovery. For example, Elastic Certified Engineer training and certification begins with the basics for getting started with the Elastic Stack, then dives deep into topics ranging from optimizing search performance to building efficient clusters.

Students learn about various ways to ingest and process data, how to write complex search requests and work with their responses, general cluster management and troubleshooting recommendations, and building custom search applications that use Elasticsearch on the back end.

In total, it takes 24 hours of training and requires no prior knowledge of Elastic, although a working knowledge of Linux terminal commands and editors is recommended. 

“Certifications in the areas like CISSP, Elastic, and automation are gaining traction,” said Randy Hopkins, VP of global systems engineering and enablement at Komprise.

“Elastic’s ability to index and provide search capabilities across distributed data sources of varying scales has and continues to gain a lot of attention from individual contributors through leadership.”