Hey all, thought I would share my notes for the CISSP certification if anyone was thinking of taking it. Certainly one of the big boy exams within the industry and certainty one that should be taken into consideration regardless of what area of the Cyber Security industry you work in/plan to work in.
To become certified you need to have a minimum of five years cumulative paid work experience in two or more of the eight domains of the CISSP CBK, however one year of full time work experienced can be satisfied if you hold a degree or one of the certifications on ISC2 list.
Furthermore, you can become a CISSP Associate if you don’t have the fix year requirements, see the link below for more information:
https://www.isc2.org/Certifications/CISSP/experience-requirements
I took the exam in November 2019 and was certified in Feb 2020. The CISSP, from my own experience, can take 3-4 months to complete, mostly consisting of reading the official book and going through the mock questions. Below are the resources I used. I would also recommend checking in on the r/cissp community as it’s a great source of information and can provide some additional training resources if you need it.
CISSP Training Material
– Kelly Handerhan Videos
https://www.cybrary.it/course/cissp
– (ISC)2 CISSP Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official Study Guide (ISC Official Study Guides):
– CISSP Official (ISC)2 Practice Tests, 2nd Edition:
– Eleventh Hour CISSP:
– Boson Questions (Exam Sim):
https://www.boson.com/practice-exam/cissp-isc2-practice-exam
– ITDojo Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwUkAunxT1BNbmKVOSEoqYA
– Why you WILL pass the CISSP – CyberTrain.IT
The exam itself uses what ISC call ‘Computerised Adaptive Testing’ which looks at the questions you are answering and how well you are doing on certain topics. The exam will then make an assessment on how many questions it shows you. You can get anywhere between 100-150 multiple choice based question. Also, as a result of using the CAT system, once you submit your answer to a question that’s it, you cannot go back and change your answer so make sure you are 100% happy with your selection before moving on. ‘RTFQ’ is even more important here.
Do as many practice questions as you can get your hands on. The Boson questions were slightly overkill in terms of complexity when compared to the actual exam but nevertheless are worth completing. All in all I estimate I probably completed 1500 mock questions before taking the exam. Other than that best of luck and let me know if you have any questions!