Working towards GXPN SEC 660

Jinverar

Hello GroupCurrently I just finsihed OSCP and I'm working towards my SEC660 course and certification. I've been studying the material and reading all the reviews. Let me know if you have any advice and all advice would be apreciated. Should I memorize all the registers? How hard is the exam? and is the whole exam multiple choice? I've heard there could be lab work similar to the OSCP Exam.~J

ITHokie

I don't think it's worth it to focus on rote memorization. Work the exploitation labs until you feel good about how memory registers work together. Knowing how registers are functionally used is more important than what they were originally intended for. Once you take a practice test you'll see what I'm talking about.

Exam difficulty is always a function of one's experience, but I suspect GXPN is pretty tough for anyone that doesn't regularly deal with assembly, writing firmware, reverse engineering, exploit writing, etc. I believe it was 54 multiple choice questions and 6 sims. The sims are last. Once you start them, you can't go back to the multiple choice questions.

Try to get to the sims with plenty of time of left. I don't know what weight they carry, but it's significant. I had 45 minutes for the sims, but that was probably too much. The point is that time management is key. If you don't get to 3 sims, it's like getting a 0 on 3 exam objectives.

One other note on the simulations - they easier than OSCP as far as I can tell. Typically you will be dropped in to a virtual machine, figure out what tool to use to accomplish an objective then use it to extract some specific piece of information.

Jinverar

After 7 months and one failed exam attempt I managed to pass the GXPN....w00t.

That course had an insane amount of information. I felt it was a good course to take after the OSCP.

w00t!

J

Info_Sec_Wannabe

Wow! A big congratulations to you on the achievement!

SaSkiller

Congrats!