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NetworkNewb

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[Deleted User]

I can use it! I'll PM you! Congrats on passing!

Anything you can share about SANS exams without violating NDA?

cyberguypr

Hey, passing is passing. Congrats!

[Deleted User]

Thank you for the practice exam!! Happy Holidays!!

What is next from SANS?

NetworkNewb

No problem! Probably just gonna depend what Work Study I can get into next. I'm thinking GCIA or GCED if I could choose.

Might be time to go after the CISSP for my next cert tho.

JoJoCal19

Congrats on the pass!!! I will be looking at challenging that sometime next year.

E Double U

Welcome to the club!

cyberguypr

I urge you to reconsider GCED. It's just way too basic, especially after doing GCIH. Your time and money will be better invested in GCIA or something else with a narower, more in depth scope.

NetworkNewb

Thanks cyber, good to know! I really haven't looked too much into it. I thought it was just more of an advanced version of the GSEC and thought it might go deeper. I want to stay more on defense side going forward so thinking maybe GCWN or GMON too.

IaHawk

Congrats on the pass!!! I'm really excited about this course, I'll be taking the live course at SANS Security East in New Orleans in January...can't get here fast enough!

quogue66

Congrats

FillAwful

Congrats on your GCIH!

I too recommend GCIA over GCED. SEC503 is an awesome course with highly technical knowledge.

I will likely be taking GCIH this coming year, however, I am very tempted to try the GNFA as it is more aligned with my job and continues to build on the foundation of GCIA.

Good luck to you on your future endeavors!

DAVIS NGUYEN

Congrats!

iBrokeIT

Congrats!

BillHoo

Congrats!

matt18e

Congrats!

rscrt

FillAwful wrote: »

Congrats on your GCIH!

I too recommend GCIA over GCED. SEC503 is an awesome course with highly technical knowledge.

I will likely be taking GCIH this coming year, however, I am very tempted to try the GNFA as it is more aligned with my job and continues to build on the foundation of GCIA.

Good luck to you on your future endeavors!

Second that! And GNFA indeed is a great one - did that half a year or so after GCIA.

aeonaeon

First of all congratulations to folks who recently completed their GCIH. I have a question for all the folks on this thread. This is my first time posting on this BB. I am a CISSP and run a small IT services co in Denver. We are looking to build our security practice within the co and i am thinking of taking up the GCIH exam in the near future. I was initially thinking of taking up the SeC504 course but the more i read about the relevance of the course i am realizing that it might be better to spend the money somewhere else to train for the exam. Will you all recommend an alternative path to getting the certification other then attending the training.

Thank you and looking forward to your feedback.

Aeon

TechGuru80

Most people will tell you the GIAC exams are pretty difficult if you don't have a ton of experience, or use the official SANS courseware. It's not necessarily that SANS has some crazy unique research that you will never see anywhere else, it's the fact that the information is across a handful of books that they hand you instead of having to invest a lot of hours doing the research yourself. Additionally, the fact that you won't be tested on anything outside of the SANS books allows for your studies to be more focused.

When you say build up your security practice, what does that mean exactly? Are you trying to add penetration testing services, monitoring, infrastructure configuration, security policies within your actual company? The GCIH is geared towards incident handling, so if you have no intention of responding to incidents, you should reconsider the certification choice.

briancam35

Can I have a practice exam? thanks

briancam35

what are other excellent books to purchase if you dont have the money to purchase SANS GCIH?

aeonaeon

Techguru80

Thanks for responding. It really helped clarify some of my concerns. By security practice i meant to say exactly what you stated but the focus of the co would be to build a retainer model for offering monitoring, config,policy and also incident handling and response so hence the focus on GCIH. Is there any other course that you would recommend that is more attuned to security consulting and mgmt?

TechGuru80

Definitely if you are going to do monitoring, GCIH and GCIA skill sets are going to be needed...does that mean you NEED the courses? Not necessarily but it's going to be very valuable and an easier sell when you go to clients to pitch and actually doing what you say you are doing.

As far as consulting...CISM / CISA are valuable but they are going to be high level so it really depends on how deep in the weeds your service offering goes.

I would say slowly rollout offerings so you can mature them without going crazy...if you try to do everything at once, you probably would fail speaking honestly.

lostsol

I've taken FOR572 GNFA, and it was awesome. Though there were times I wish I knew packet analysis more thoroughly, and now deciding if I should take 503. Any recommendations for 503? Does 503 address how packets are more often encrypted and how to deal with them?