Passed CHFI 312-49v8

MODVLVS

Background:

The only reason I took the test is because it's part of the WGU MISA degree program. Just as a background, I have a B.S. in Computer Science, have some network security training through the military, and about 3 years worth of managerial experience through the military. I'm not too technical in a sense nor do I really desire to be. My job is to recognize the technical skills of my personnel and coalesce them to get something done. The certs I have from WGU so far include CCENT (January 2013), CEH (June 2013), and now CHFI. My employer paid for CISSP, I passed the test first time around in October 2013.

I'll admit, I wasn't too excited for the CHFI exam. I took the CEH back in July and after this test I can confirm I'm not a fan of EC-Council. Their material just seems rather disorganized and the material they test on just seems all over the place.

I spent about a three week period studying, studying maybe 2-4 days of each of those weeks for about 3-6 hours on those study days. On night beforehand, I just went through the Kleiman book chapter summaries.

****************

Study materials:

uCertify - I read through a few of the chapters and skimmed through the others. The practice exams were okay, but seemed to focused on tools, especially EnCase. I will say this: the practice exams are NOTHING like the real exam.

iLabs/iClass - I didn't do too many of the iLabs, maybe two or three. I blew through about half of the iClass videos, overall they were very informative and the instructor was very pretty clear in getting ideas across that I may not have gleaned from the text.

"The Official CHFI Study Guide" by Dave Kleiman - This book was really the most informative. I'm already familiar w/ a lot of topics discussed in the book, so it was nice to be able to skim over the stuff I already knew so I could concentrate on stuff I wasn't too familiar with or was learning about for the first time.

Mobile CHFI Flashcards - These were useful because I could blow through these when I didn't want to get into "full on study mode." If I was at home I could just bring these up on my mobile and just make a mental note on stuff I would need to review in the Kleiman book.

****************

The test itself:

I'd say a third, maybe even as high of about half of the questions had answers that stood out. Maybe a quarter were technical to the point that you either knew the answer or you didn't, you couldn't think your way through some of those. I'd say maybe the rest related to forensic tools.

****************

If I had to do it again, I would probably read through the Kleiman book all the way and do flashcards as I went along. I may have gone through the videos after a few of the chapters if I felt uncomfortable with any of the chapters though.

I certainly could have spent more time studying, but I really had little motivation for this exam other than just to pass. I had a study period of three weeks, but effectively 7-10 days of hard core studying. Certainly experience passing previous certs helped, but it seems the folks that do best are the ones w/ more experience.

Passed w/ a score of 79.

JDMurray

Congratulations on your pass and thanks for the review!