Study Material Input/Guidance

swy000

Hello - looking for some guidance on study material and stumbled on this website and have been reading people's experiences. This is a good source of information and appreciate everyone's input.

My company pays for my study material but I don't want to overload and have a day job that keeps me very busy to say the least. I will be buying:

1- Study guide (CISSP (ISC)2 Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official Study Guide 7th Edition)
2- Iphone app for questions and flashcards (CISSP (ISC)2 Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official App)
3- CISSP Official ISC2 Practice Tests 1st Edition (doesnt come up out till July 7). I'm trying to find a current practice exam site since as of earlier this year, the exam has added new types of questions. Any input here?
(total of above about $80)

4- I am allowed to take a course of some sort. I was considering taking a boot camp but I dont think I would want to take a week off from work. So was looking at onDemand/Online courses. This is where I would like some input. Any recommendations?

• Kelly's Cybrary seem to be a liked source or, (free)
• OFFICIAL (ISC)² CISSP TRAINING SEMINAR ONDEMAND ($2,495) by Adam Gordon Link to Course

Any other input welcome. Thanks in advance.

Seab

Hi swy000,

This is certainly a great list of ressources. Most of people subscribe to cccure to practice questions, but the test questions from ISC2 should be good, hopefully for you including more scenarios. I am not impress with cccure to be honest, it is doing is job, but doesn't seem incredibly up to date with the material and new questions style. You also get over 1000 questions online from that book.

Cybrary video are great, but yes for free. If you have the budget for an online class, I think SANS is quite popular as well, and you can keep Cybrary as a backup for review if ever you have more time. Depends how much time you have as well. Boot camp are certainly more efficiant.

swy000

Thanks. That was helpful. I haven't come across SANS so I just looked through it and seemed like it's gotten some good reviews. It's about $5k which is just about double the ISC2 onDemand training... Just seems like an excessive price tag but I guess you're saying it's quite popular so that makes sense.
I found it interesting that you said the boot camp is quite efficient; I've never personally taken one, but perhaps investing the time to do might be worth it. I'm going to ponder these things for a day or two then make a pick. Appreciate the input, Seab.

Seab

Someone asked something similar a few days about, he was a consultant and he has the choice to take a week off + paying the boot camp, or doing self study. My answer was, depends how much you value your time.
There is some bootcamps that seem extremely efficient, and you can pass the exam straight away after and most of the people succeed. You need to check the review carefully, and this is specific to a few teachers with excellent reputation, and that week would be a crazy one. But, put in perspective that I am studying since at least 6 months, focusing more and more, last 3 months, then last month, most of my free time reading CISSP stuff, and thinking about it, having almost no social and sport life. In my opinion, self-study is way more difficult, and ask for way more discipline than boot camp, it's a complete journey that you would learn a lot, probably way more. Boot camp will probably makes you pass the exam. If you have the chance, enjoy

Scsinusy

I recently have had this struggle myself. I have heard from peers the SANS course is the way to go if your company will pay for it. Especially if you're more technical as its technical minded teaching it. I currently am reading the CISSP study guide by Eric Conrad who also happens to be the author of the SANS course. I have found this book very easy to read and follow. I am fortunate enough that my company is requiring me get certified so they sprung for me to attend a boot camp which I am taking the InfoSec Institute one in late June with a 15 July test date. I am attending virtually so I wasn't able to test the last day of the course. Good luck in your studies.

clarkincnet

I used study books, Kelly's video's etc. to learn the material. I used TrainingCamp at the end of the course as a review. They setup the exam to be taken on the last day so it was convenient.