GCIH Study Guide for $45 !!!!

Never thought in a million years that I'd see a GCIH study resource this cheap. Amazon apparently has a book titled GCIH GIAC Certified Incident Handler All-in-One Exam Guide 1st Edition for $45 bucks. This is a very sharp contrast from the thousands of dollars being charged from the usual source. Plus the book has a 5-star rating and is from a very reputable publisher (McGraw-Hill) and authored by a GIAC Advisory Board member (Nick Mitropoulos)

Can you all please chime in on this? What da blazes? I wanna search out the catch-22!

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Comments

SteveLavoie

Thanks.. I looked at it on O'Reilly... it is looking fine. At first glance, it doesnt seem to cover the new GCIH curriculum

SteveLavoie

Also, I dont think, that this guide only would permit you to pass the exam. However it could be a nice add-on to someone who did the class. Well, I will know "soon" as I will be following SEC504 in 2021

JDMurray

Maybe it's really a study guide for the ECIH certification in disguise.

egrizzly

The book certainly cannot compete against the official SEC504 course. However, given that the author is a member of the GIAC Advisory board the price is certainly interesting. So would I recommend it to study for the GCIH? (probably not). Would I recommend it as a reference to use if you're an Incident Handler? Absolutely!!

If you cannot afford SEC504 tapping into that books knowledge pools is wayyy better than nothing!!

SteveLavoie

Totally agree on that one @egrizzly, I would not bet 2K$ exam on a 45$ book, unless you have impressive experience in that area. GIAC certification get their reputation from the awesome class.. not the other way

E Double U

So my guess would be that the same topics are covered such as incident handling steps and attack techniques with possibly the different tools used for each, but without the labs provided by SANS. Would be interesting to see if someone bypasses the training and uses this book to pass the exam. As @SteveLavoie mentions, I would also imagine that someone that goes this route would have some field experience.

JDMurray

In addition to this GCIH AIO book (Aug 2020, 1st ed.), there have been other GIAC All-In-One books published by McGraw-Hill, including GPEN (Oct 2020, 1st ed.) and GSEC (2019, 2nd ed.).

These books are also available on O'Reilly's subscription site.

SteveLavoie

Thanks @JDMurray I will look at the GPEN book and see if it would have helped me.. I did GPEN recently, so it is still fresh in my memory

JDMurray

Post a book review at Amazon or O'Reilly!

SteveLavoie

Good idea, if I can run over my bad english syndrom lol

JDMurray

Type it up in an editor that will make word suggestions, such as Google Docs and Microsoft OneNote. That's one of my writing secrets.

egrizzly

E Double U said:

So my guess would be that the same topics are covered such as incident handling steps and attack techniques with possibly the different tools used for each, but without the labs provided by SANS. Would be interesting to see if someone bypasses the training and uses this book to pass the exam. As @SteveLavoie mentions, I would also imagine that someone that goes this route would have some field experience.

I'm thinking along those lines as well.

SteveLavoie

There is also the cost of doing the exam without the corresponding class. It is 2K$ while it is only 800$ if you do the class.. So you are better be sure of you.

yoba222

I challenged it when it cost around $1200 for the challenge attempt. At $2000 now, I'd do something else personally. Nice that there's another option out there.

SteveLavoie

I will do GCIH next.. because it is one of the SANS certification that are the most recognised. Then I will question myself if I continue

SteveLavoie

OK, I used my Friday night to do a quick read on GPEN AIO book, I would say it it 95% spot on on official books. My only complaint would be is it look a bit weak on Kerberoasting and other AD attack, otherwise it could be as well be the official book (without the lab manual)

TechGromit

A 3rd party book might work if the exam didn't get updated so often. The problem is even if it covered everything on the current exam, by the time it was written, published and on the shelves, it would already be outdated. I wouldn't put it past SANS to purposely update the exam so the 3rd party book be useless for passing the exam to protect there market.

JDMurray

It's a good thing a score of 100% isn't needed to pass a GIAC exam. In fact, isn't a GIAC exam passing grade usually in the 70's percentile?