Passed GCIA!

josh.armentrout1

So it's no surprise that I'm not one to post often due to post count. Mainly lurking and absorbing the goodness that comes from the forum. However, I must once again come out of the digital darkness and claim my right to say that I have once again passed another GIAC exam. This time, the GCIA!

This exam was a beast. I loved the material it covered, but man... let me say this. While other exams give general questions, this one is all about specifics. The meat and potatoes. No fluff. Know your stuff or get a move on to something else like CIW (I got my CIW's so I can make this comment ). I was doing real good at the beginning of the exam with a cumulative score of over 90% but in the end, I ended up with an 84. The exam doesn't throw trick questions or anything. It definitely tests your grasp of the material. You'll do well if you study the course material closely.

I indexed the books thoroughly, added some subnetting, hex/bin/dec, and header "cheatsheets" to round out the overall index. I'll be happy enough to share them if you ask. But I will not give out my index as that's encroaching on NDA land. I don't like going there . As far as total time, you should be able to finish the exam with plenty of time to spare. The practice exams should help you judge how slow/fast you are going and prepares you for the real exam in that regard.

I had a good time taking the class with Mike Poor. I'm sure our facilitator @j.petrov can agree. I just hope I will be able to take another SANS class next year!

If you guys want to read more into my experience with the GCIA, take a look over here: Tackling the GIAC GCIA!

cyberguypr

Congrats on the pass!

JoJoCal19

Congrats on the pass!!! I'm facilitating this class next month at SANS Virginia Beach, with Mike Poor. I'm definitely nervous as I'm usually not too strong with super low-level technical stuff. It will definitely be a challenge for me. Is the test one where labbing/hands on with the tools will help as much as studying the material?

josh.armentrout1

JoJoCal19 wrote: »

Congrats on the pass!!! I'm facilitating this class next month at SANS Virginia Beach, with Mike Poor. I'm definitely nervous as I'm usually not too strong with super low-level technical stuff. It will definitely be a challenge for me. Is the test one where labbing/hands on with the tools will help as much as studying the material?

The labbing will definitely fill in the gaps. Put time into the study material. Be able to read raw hex or at least enough to get through. The material in GSEC and the tcpdump handout they give you will help with the that. Start getting familiar with the byte offsets in the different headers (IP, TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc.). I would say you don't have to be intimate with the knowledge, merely knowing the 9th byte offset in the IP header will give you the protocol you're looking at gives you a leg up on the exam.

Starting out I had a general overview of the type of content in the class but not much working knowledge. The first couple days was a network fundamental review you have in GSEC. For me that allowed me to keep up on days one and two. The rest of that time, I had to review after class every night except for the night of day four, where things got a little interesting.

Is it something you're going to have trouble understanding? Probably not. Is it something to take lightly? Absolutely not. What you put in is what you will take out.

UnixGuy

Great review thanks!!

Congrats!!

What's next for you? What's your job duties like?

josh.armentrout1

Well, in the immediate future, vacation. Wifey wants to take me to the motherland of Korea.

After that, I think I'll have to work on a CISSP or continuing pen test labbing. I'm not sure.

My job duties? Much like my fathers mantra, "Do what you're told, when you're supposed to do it." I always added "and nobody gets hurt."

cynicbeard

Congrats!

greg9891

congrats

ccnpninja

Awesome !

j.petrov

Congrats again! Good to see another classmate tackle this exam

j.petrov

JoJoCal19 wrote: »

Congrats on the pass!!! I'm facilitating this class next month at SANS Virginia Beach, with Mike Poor. I'm definitely nervous as I'm usually not too strong with super low-level technical stuff. It will definitely be a challenge for me. Is the test one where labbing/hands on with the tools will help as much as studying the material?

I'll also offer up a bit of advice. I had very limited experience in this field prior to taking the class. Do not get discouraged if you do not understand the material during class as it is covered at a rapid pace. If you need additional help definitely ask Mike, when I facilitated he stayed an extra hour or so on day 1 or 2 with almost about a quarter of the class to go over some some of the hex stuff in more detail. It definitely helped in the days that followed.

You'll love the class, I put some of the info in practice straight away and was able to catch some scanning on a client network that was not being flagged by any appliance. A little tcpdump with bpf filters did the trick. Enjoy the class!

JoJoCal19

Thanks for the advice j.petrov!

contentpros

JoJoCal19 wrote: »

Congrats on the pass!!! I'm facilitating this class next month at SANS Virginia Beach, with Mike Poor. I'm definitely nervous as I'm usually not too strong with super low-level technical stuff. It will definitely be a challenge for me. Is the test one where labbing/hands on with the tools will help as much as studying the material?

Mike likes his sugar-free Redbull in the morning. Get them cold and 2x at a time! I facilitated for Mike in San Diego and he is a great person to work with. Enjoy the class and bring comfortable shoes!

JoJoCal19

Thanks for the heads up contentpros!