Passed GSEC today 4/30/12

reppgoareppgoa Member Posts: 151
Just passed GSEC...know your linux.

Comments

  • kriscamaro68kriscamaro68 Member Posts: 1,186 ■■■■■■■□□□
    Congrats on the pass, that is awesome!
  • the_Grinchthe_Grinch Member Posts: 4,165 ■■■■■■■■■■
    Congrats!
    WIP:
    PHP
    Kotlin
    Intro to Discrete Math
    Programming Languages
    Work stuff
  • JDMurrayJDMurray Admin Posts: 13,023 Admin
    Yes, congratulations! icon_thumright.gif


    I wouldn't mind nailing that one myself one day. Do you have any other thoughts on it?
  • reppgoareppgoa Member Posts: 151
    Its a lot of material over a wide breadth of domains. It was more technical than I thought it was going to be. You actually have to know how to deconstruct a packet, how the various protocols work and DONT work, and know the various outputs of tools like nessus, wireshark,net stumbler, snort, and kismet. And I cant stress enough how important it is to index your study material. Just because its open book doesn't mean it isn't still challenging. 6 books worth of material. You will NOT have enough time to blindly look up every question. I had to look up about 1/4 of the questions and finished with 1.5 hours left. If I had had to look up 50%, without indexed material, I am not sure I would have made it.
  • lanrexng2lanrexng2 Member Posts: 74 ■■□□□□□□□□
    icon_smile.gif congrats man! What books did you use or did you take the extremely expensive classes? :-p
    M Sc Computer Science == 1% completeA+, Network+, Security+, CCENT == 100% complete
    ICND2, RHCSA, C/C++, Python, x86,
  • YuckTheFankeesYuckTheFankees Member Posts: 1,281 ■■■■■□□□□□
    Awesome job! What's next for you?
  • dude2f4dude2f4 Registered Users Posts: 2 ■□□□□□□□□□
    congrats. Im currently studying for the GSEC myself... im taking the ondemand bootcamp from sans.org along with the books and mp3s do you think that is a good way to go. I took the Security + last year along with A+ and Net + the army threw this course on me out of nowhere. They paid for it ofcourse and I must say it is an expensive course to take. Is this really a good cert to have. Im trying to find a job in the information security field but it seems like everyone wants someone with experience... thats what im lacking. lol...
  • reppgoareppgoa Member Posts: 151
    @dude2f4, It is significantly harder than security+. Its not even in the same league. I passed security+ in 18 minutes with a 96%, where GSEC took me 3.5 hours and I got an 85%

    Up next is finishing my degree in Computer Networking and Security, I have 3 semesters left. I MIGHT consider OSCP as I love how they have it setup. GPEN is an obvious choice, but I would like to have my C|EH (lol) and OSCP before I take GPEN. I took an ethical hacking class 2 semesters ago and loved it. It was with Rob Murphy who runs warl0ck Gam3z. My final was a hacking challenge game board against my peers in the class. We attacked VM's, cracked passwords, and answered obscure trivia. I LOVED it.

    This next semester I have an advanced digital forensics course, so who knows where that will take me. I know that I could probably pass CISSP at this point, but not sure if I can scrounge up the experience requirement. I took a CISSP practice exam last semester and got a 97%. We shall see!
  • reppgoareppgoa Member Posts: 151
    lanrexng2 wrote: »
    icon_smile.gif congrats man! What books did you use or did you take the extremely expensive classes? :-p

    My company paid for training and then I used common books to supplement. All of the answers can be found in the supplied study material though. I just used other books for things that I didnt want to index in the provided materials.
  • docricedocrice Member Posts: 1,706 ■■■■■■■■■■
    Congrats on the pass. Not an easy one considering the wide number of subjects covered. The GSEC is a good solid foundations cert that's definitely a step above Security+. I passed Sec+ a few weeks before I took 401 so I remember the difference pretty well. I don't remember the study material being 7 books long, although perhaps I just don't remember or they upped the content an additional book.
    Hopefully-useful stuff I've written: http://kimiushida.com/bitsandpieces/articles/
  • reppgoareppgoa Member Posts: 151
    docrice wrote: »
    Congrats on the pass. Not an easy one considering the wide number of subjects covered. The GSEC is a good solid foundations cert that's definitely a step above Security+. I passed Sec+ a few weeks before I took 401 so I remember the difference pretty well. I don't remember the study material being 7 books long, although perhaps I just don't remember or they upped the content an additional book.

    Indeed, its 6. Was a typo =P Will edit.
  • YuckTheFankeesYuckTheFankees Member Posts: 1,281 ■■■■■□□□□□
    OSCP and GPEN are on my to-do list as well, let us know when you get to that point!.
  • reppgoareppgoa Member Posts: 151
    After taking some time to think about it, and talking with some old Army friends, I think I can squeeze the necessary time requirements out of my time in the service for CISSP. I easily have the 5 years of physical security down, just need to see if I can finagle access control. I was in the infantry and thats all I did was physical security and access control lol. I also have 2 years of experience in network security from the latter portion of my time in the service. While CISSP interests me very little in reality, I think its the most marketable cert.
  • laughing_manlaughing_man Member Posts: 84 ■■□□□□□□□□
    Awesome job! Sitting for my GSEC in a week or two. Kinda nervous. Did you take the practice tests? If so, how did they compare to the final?
  • reppgoareppgoa Member Posts: 151
    I took one of them, and it wasn't even close from what I can remember.
  • laughing_manlaughing_man Member Posts: 84 ■■□□□□□□□□
  • dude2f4dude2f4 Registered Users Posts: 2 ■□□□□□□□□□
    ahhh cool thanks... ohhh one more question.. the test is open book? my unit didnt tell me that... shoot so I should tab these books then huh?
  • onesaintonesaint Member Posts: 801
    Congratulations on the pass!

    What's the college you're getting the degree from? Those sound like some pretty fantastic classes.
    Work in progress: picking up Postgres, elastisearch, redis, Cloudera, & AWS.
    Next up: eventually the RHCE and to start blogging again.

    Control Protocol; my blog of exam notes and IT randomness
  • reppgoareppgoa Member Posts: 151
    dude, I wouldn't waste time tabbing them with anything other than numbers. I created an index in a word document that linked to the numbered tabs in each book.

    onesaint, it was UMUC, but it was a fluke. So many people failed that hacking class that the department watered it down completely. Its sad that rather than pushing people to actually meet a standard, they just lowered the bar. I still talk with the teacher all the time, and its pretty bad. There is a pre-req of a linux+ class that people must take to be able to take this hacking class. People show up barely even being able to spell Linux.
  • TeKniquesTeKniques Member Posts: 1,262 ■■■■□□□□□□
    Congratulations on the pass. I checked into some SANS stuff out of curiosity a couple weeks ago and took the pre-assessment on their site; indeed this covers quite a bit of material. It's almost intimidating how much stuff is covered as it seems to be pretty technical as well.

    Best of luck on your next effort!
  • onesaintonesaint Member Posts: 801
    reppgoa wrote: »
    dude, I wouldn't waste time tabbing them with anything other than numbers. I created an index in a word document that linked to the numbered tabs in each book.

    onesaint, it was UMUC, but it was a fluke. So many people failed that hacking class that the department watered it down completely. Its sad that rather than pushing people to actually meet a standard, they just lowered the bar. I still talk with the teacher all the time, and its pretty bad. There is a pre-req of a linux+ class that people must take to be able to take this hacking class. People show up barely even being able to spell Linux.

    I'm in a LAMP / Openstack cloud class like that right now. There's a prerequisite of Linux+ as well. We started out with 25 people. I was the only one who knew any Linux besides the Teacher. It's a joke. The Teacher is brilliant, but the lack of general Linux knowledge in the class is a drag. We've ended up with about 7 students still in class and I don't think they get 80% of what he talks about. I just sit and pick his brain which has the effect of delving deeper into specific topics. I wish folks would at least try to meet the prereqs.
    Work in progress: picking up Postgres, elastisearch, redis, Cloudera, & AWS.
    Next up: eventually the RHCE and to start blogging again.

    Control Protocol; my blog of exam notes and IT randomness
  • CEHwanabeCEHwanabe Banned Posts: 31 ■□□□□□□□□□
    how do u take that exam? just from GIAC site no application like EcCouncil?
    reppgoa wrote: »
    Just passed GSEC...know your linux.
  • reppgoareppgoa Member Posts: 151
    You can challenge the exam, but generally you have to take the training. I took a 5 day training course in Baltimore, it was awesome.
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