Passed GCIH today

I skirted DoD 8570 too long and finally was in a position where I had to obtain at least IATII or lose my job. I have a MS in Information Assurance so decided that Sec+ was not the route I wanted to go and my background is more security than systems focused I felt IATIII was better. I searched through CISSP material and realized management is not my route, I figured GCIH and then follow on for a CND cert was my route. SO, I scheduled the cert on Thursday and scheduled with a Proctor for today.

I took one practice exam and got an 80% using the books and no index and figured I was good to go.

I scored 84% on the exam after rushing the last 20 questions once I reached the "I passed" line of 109 questions correct.

Please do not take this to mean the test was easy. It is in fact no joke. I have over 10 years plus my IA degree under my belt so most of the material was refresher for me. If you are coming in cold, you really need to read the material and understand it. Well over 50% of my questions were scenario based so you have to know the IH procedures, some Windows, some Linux and a lot of netcat. BTW, what is up with 15+ questions related to netcat? lol

Good luck to all of you who are pursuing this certification.

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Comments

YFZblu

Thanks for posting about your experience with GCIH - And congrats on the pass!

Did you attend the conference or use OnDemand?

tonyric

YFZblu wrote: »

Thanks for posting about your experience with GCIH - And congrats on the pass!

Did you attend the conference or use OnDemand?

I went in cold. Just a couple days familiarizing myself with the book layout. I had most of the knowledge from my background.

ChooseLife

Nice job, congrats on the pass

docrice

Which book did you use? Was it the SANS courseware or another source like Counter Hack Reloaded?

jcadarsh

I am going to be attending the SANS Sec 504 on april 29th. THe conference. It would be of great help if you can tell me how to go about this exam !!

Exam means a lot for me right now.

webgeek

tonyric wrote: »

I went in cold. Just a couple days familiarizing myself with the book layout. I had most of the knowledge from my background.

I thought you had to attend a GIAC class before being able to take any GIAC exams

......

jcadarsh

You can challenge the exam. You need not attend a course for some of the modules.

webgeek

jcadarsh wrote: »

You can challenge the exam. You need not attend a course for some of the modules.

So challenging an exam is based on experience? I'm looking at the GSEC....I also found out that my local community college has the GSEC course training for was less than going through SANS directly.

JDMurray

The college advertises a course specifically for the GIAC GSEC? Can you post a link to that training course?

webgeek

JDMurray wrote: »

The college advertises a course specifically for the GIAC GSEC? Can you post a link to that training course?

As requested: Valencia College Continuing Education GIAC GSEC
Online format for only $1,595

JDMurray

I wonder why we don't see more colleges offering SANS courses. I always assumed that the SANS material is very costly (i.e., not economical) to license, or is not available for licensing at all. I assume the same is true for why we don't see book publishers cranking out GIAC cert prep guides.

I'll see about getting an official response from SANS/GIAC about these questions.