CISSP

[Freakuk]

Talk to me?

Just finishing up a contract, currently in a security PM role. I'm thinking I should go for the CISSP certification, however I'm just a PM with a broad tech background.

So, what do I need to know? Easy, hard, boot camp, pre-study, what to read, gen up on etc etc.

Thanks

[964Cup]

Short answer: lots, but not necessarily in that much detail. A good deal of it is stuff you will never need to know again, too.

Long answer too long for here, but there are some good books. Tipton's official book is ok, but many trainers swear by Shon Harris's All-In-One CISSP (ISBN 978-0-07-160217-8). A mere 1194 pages.

Firebrand do a good - if dull, intensive, and expensive - week-long residential course; I did my CISSP and CISSP-ISSMP with them.

Have a good look through the material on ISC2's website as well; there's some curriculum guides and things on there.

Remember you will need an existing CISSP to endorse you, and have to be able to demonstrate sufficient experience across sufficient CBK domains.

[bga]

964Cup has got it covered. The Shon Harris book is comprehensive and is in the library of InfoSec practitioners the world over.

More recently I've seen a few organisations looking for IISP membership but the qualification for that is through interview panel rather than the leviathan multiple choice exam.