I'm so happy to say I passed the CCNA SECOPS exam first try, but just barely.
I'll try to give you some advice on preparing for the exam and a little about my experience. I'm not new to the field, but it's been quite a few years since I've been in it. (My previous experience in IT was heavy into networking.) I've been studying the last 10 months to get back into IT and specifically security. I've passed Net+, Sec+ and now Cyber Ops all in about 10 months. I got in on the $10 million scholarship Cisco awarded so I was on a tight schedule to get it completed within their timeframe. Thankfully it all worked out time-wise for me with what I was studying on my own. Cisco included online videos, labs and mentors with the scholarship. The videos and labs were good, but not enough to pass the SECOPS exam by itself.
What I included in my own self-study was the Cisco SECOPS book, Nist 800-61 and Nist 800-86 and ITProTV videos. I read the SECOPS book twice and took the online exams. Even with the SECOPS book, labs, videos and mentors it's still not enough to pass the exam. I spent time studying the NIST documents and regular expressions and watching the ITProTV videos. ITProTV as of today doesn't have the class all the way completed. There are still videos they need to make. I still had questions on the test that I had not studied or even heard of. I felt like I either knew the answer to the question or I had no idea and had to guess.
Now what do I do? Any suggestions on the level of job I should be applying for? Unfortunately, Cyber Ops is so new there aren't many job postings for it.
I am addicted to getting certs now. I may have to try for the CISSP, but first I need to find a job.
