Easiest way to attain DoD 8570 IAT Level II

Timbo66

I hold a Cisco CCIE cert in Routing & Switching and a TS/SCI clearance but a job I am applying for requires a DoD 8570 IAT Level II certification. I can choose any of the following:
GSEC
Security+ CE
SSCP
CCNA-Security

Generally speaking, which is the easiest and fastest to pass? Yes, it would be nice to have a CISSP and get IAT Level III instead, but I don't have the time to study for that. I need something I can walk in and pass with little prep, hopefully just leveraging my CCIE knowledge.

Violated

Security+ seems to be what everyone has where I work. I passed with only reading the Darril Gibson book.

JoJoCal19

I second reading through Darril Gibson's book and knocking out the Security+. I passed it easily a long time ago just using his book. The others are either much more costly or difficult/time consuming to pursue. You could really knock out the Sec+ in two weeks of studying.

Shane2

Definitely Sec+

However, I recommend Mike Meyers' Passport book. It is the easiest reading I have cone across.

spicy ahi

Concur with the Sec+ recommendation. Though CCNA-sec might be just as easy for you. Have you taken a look at the objectives? If they look easy to you, maybe knock that one out instead. That way you don't have to pay maintenance fees and maintain CE credits. You can save all that for when you get the CISSP.

jamesleecoleman

Darril Gibson's book is awesome for the Security+ certification.

yoba222

Easiest and fastest? GSEC. I have not taken it so this is armchair advice at best. Might want to check the price of the course first though.

JoJoCal19

spicy ahi wrote: »

Concur with the Sec+ recommendation. Though CCNA-sec might be just as easy for you. Have you taken a look at the objectives? If they look easy to you, maybe knock that one out instead. That way you don't have to pay maintenance fees and maintain CE credits. You can save all that for when you get the CISSP.

The CCNA Sec might still be tough even with his CCIE, as it seems Cisco has really just made the exam super hard and there are a ton of people having to take it multiple times. So for speed, nothing will beat the Sec+.

yoba222 wrote: »

Easiest and fastest? GSEC. I have not taken it so this is armchair advice at best. Might want to check the price of the course first though.

I held both (Sec+ expired). Not only is challenging the GSEC like $1250 vs $300(?) for the Sec+, the Sec+ is still way easier and one can just read through Gibson or Meyer's book and pass in a week or two.

TechGuru80

I think for a lot of people especially just switching to need a security, security+ is a good choice...but my friend you have a CCIE already so CCNA:Security shouldn't be very difficult since you are likely to have seen a lot of that stuff before. A benefit that you would get from security+ is IAM 1, but for speed CCNA:Security. Also for security+ you are likely to run into risk management concepts, which if memory serves me correct you wouldn't have run across on Cisco exams.

tunerX

Sec+ or CCNA security.

anhtran35

Security + CE.

BuzzSaw

SSCP isn't overly difficult either, and for whatever reason, employers in this area seem to look more favorably on ISC than Comptia But, obviously if quick is the goal, then its hard to beat Security + as I'd bet you have the knowledge needed to sit for it with little review.

Clm

I would say Sec+, Because there are so many resources out there for it.

yoba222

JoJoCal19 wrote: »

I held both (Sec+ expired). Not only is challenging the GSEC like $1250 vs $300(?) for the Sec+, the Sec+ is still way easier and one can just read through Gibson or Meyer's book and pass in a week or two.

I'm not convinced the average Joe can do it in 2 weeks. I'm under the impression CompTia has raised the difficulty significantly in the past year or two. I've been work acquaintances with several people that failed the Sec+ in 2016, one several times until he was let go.

Timbo66

Many thanks for the replies. I think I will go with CCNA-Sec because there is bound to be a lot of overlap from CCIE fundamentals, plus when you re-certify a CCIE cert it automatically re-certifies all the lower certs such as CCNA's so I'd never have to re-certify it.

JoJoCal19

yoba222 wrote: »

I'm not convinced the average Joe can do it in 2 weeks. I'm under the impression CompTia has raised the difficulty significantly in the past year or two. I've been work acquaintances with several people that failed the Sec+ in 2016, one several times until he was let go.

Yea you're right, it has been about 5 years or so since I cleared it so I'm sure they probably have changed it.