Passed GCIA 84%

Hey folks,

I took and passed the GICA today with an 84%. This test is not to be underestimated as it's been stated on here before. I did the On Demand class as part of the MSISE program.

First practice test I scored a 78% and was NOT expecting the labs at all. So that was rough.
Second practice test I scored an 82%
Actual test 84%

I thought the exam was a little bit easier than the practice tests but pretty close. There were a few where it was insanely simple. There were some other questions where you had to chain a few concepts together actually to get to the right answer.

My index was about 10 pages long. I had also a bunch of lose sheets of notes and stuff on commands, and some pre-defined hex to decimal conversions.

Helpful links I used.

https://tonystrains.com/download/DCC_DecBiHex_Chart.pdf

Then I had these as well as a quick reference
» TCP Flag Key Packet-Scale Congestion Control
https://danielmiessler.com/study/tcpdump/

Then these were good to practice with
https://malwarejake.blogspot.com/2015/05/packet-analysis-practice-part-1.html
MalwareJake: Packet analysis practice part 1 - Solutions
https://malwarejake.blogspot.com/search/label/GCIA

In order of difficulty I think this I'd rate this exam the toughest so far.

GCIA, GWAPT, GCIH (being the easiest)

Up next is GCWN

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Comments

mactex

Congrats! Great course with awesome labs.

cyberguypr

Congrats!

ifaii9al

Congrats Markmorow, I scheduled my exam two weeks from now. could you please tell us about the labs ? how it comes and what is needed to do ?

Thank you.

gespenstern

Congrats!

Also, I envy your MCP Windows Internals! I wish I had one, but they seem to have retired it and no replacement provided so far!

krucial85

Congratulations! I thought it was more difficult that expected as well. I'm studying for the CGWN right now and plan to take the exam in a week or so. What are you wanting to do career wise? I'm curious because I'm in the military right now as an Information Systems Security Manger (basically an IAM) and would like to do IT Auditing, IT security or IT forensics when I end my service in the next couple of years.

markmorow

ifaii9al wrote: »

Congrats Markmorow, I scheduled my exam two weeks from now. could you please tell us about the labs ? how it comes and what is needed to do ?

Thank you.

The labs on the exam are very similar to the labs in the practice test which are built on the labs from the class. Nothing was a surprise.

markmorow

mactex wrote: »

Congrats! Great course with awesome labs.

Thanks, I learned a lot!

markmorow

cyberguypr wrote: »

Congrats!

Thanks!

markmorow

gespenstern wrote: »

Congrats!

Also, I envy your MCP Windows Internals! I wish I had one, but they seem to have retired it and no replacement provided so far!

Aha yes. That was a tough exam. I took it right before they got rid of it. I don't think enough people took it. It was good exam though.

markmorow

krucial85 wrote: »

Congratulations! I thought it was more difficult that expected as well. I'm studying for the CGWN right now and plan to take the exam in a week or so. What are you wanting to do career wise? I'm curious because I'm in the military right now as an Information Systems Security Manger (basically an IAM) and would like to do IT Auditing, IT security or IT forensics when I end my service in the next couple of years.

Good luck on the GCWN. Post your experience. I actually work at Microsoft in the identity product group, that's AD, Azure AD and some ADFS. I took this class to round me out on some areas and see how the content was. So career wise I think I'm in a good spot

.

As for you I encourage you to take a look at our Jobs for Vets. https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/military. Feel free to PM me your email or you can get me on twitter @MarkMorow. Happy to help.

mjs1104

Congrats. GCIA is a beast.

Info_Sec_Wannabe

Great job there sir!

Of the three, which one did you enjoy the most?

markmorow

Info_Sec_Wannabe wrote: »

Great job there sir!

Of the three, which one did you enjoy the most?

Probably the GCIH was the most fun. GCIA I probably learned the most in. They were all good.

futurehendrix

welcome to the club. sensational.