Passed the AWS Certified Security -Specialty exam

I sat the Beta exam on March 2nd. Got the result back today with a score of 880 out of 1000. The passing score is 750.

This is a copy of my feedback from the day I took the exam:

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I sat the AWS Certified Security - Specialty Beta today and felt well prepared. I'm really hoping I passed. I also did the ACG course but went further in the preparation. Also watched several ReInvent 2017 videos on security topics and took some notes on those. Then I read several of the Whitepapers and did many labs to fully understand the security features. This extra effort was essential during the exam as many questions were not completely covered by the ACG videos. Nonetheless, this is a Beta Exam so I know some topics are unpredictable.

I highly recommend you do the CSAA first. I also did the CCP as a pre-requisite for the Security Exam but then realized I needed a better grasp of basic AWS features before doing the Security. Thus, I studied for the CSAA and passed that a couple of weeks ago. I was a lot better prepared for the Security Exam than I was for the CSAA. That's why I'm hoping I'll pass.

Knowledge from the ReInvent 2017 videos is key as they fill in some very specific details of KMS, incident response, and IAM. I even felt like one KMS scenario question on the exam was poorly formulated as I had just watched Ken Beer's presentation on KMS explaining how KMS Policy is KING and trumps IAM policy. The exam question seemed to ignore that fact and in essence, should have no right answers.

Finally, after you have completed the CSAA on ACG, watch the S3 Masterclass and the Sysops classes as well. Some complementary material in those.