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I can very happily say that I have passed the CISSP exam!

I originally posted that I first started studying for the CISSP in January, but I stopped for a couple months as I switched jobs, and wanted to be able to get acclimated with the new workplace. Finally around April I started studying for the CISSP from the moment I got home until I went to bed. Pretty much I spent any spare time I had studying.

My study materials included Shon Harris’s All In One CISSP Study book 5th edition, Shon Harris’s additional questions, the Official ISC2 CISSP Study guide, and a paid test subscription to cccure.org’s test questions. While I had all these materials, the two biggest sources of information was Shon Harris’s AIO book, and the cccure.org test engine. I believe just constant studying and constant test taking forced me to learn the material, and I was able to use it to take and pass the exam!

I sat for the exam on June 12th in Reston. I was maybe the 5th person done taking the test at exactly 2 hours and 59 minutes into the 6 hour exam. I walked away feeling fairly confident that I did well, and just hoping that I passed.

Waiting to find out the results is the worst. I kept taking one small practice test a day just in case I would have to retake the test again so I could help keep it all fresh in my mind. It took just about 2.5 weeks to find out how I did. I was at a conference when I got the e-mail from ISC2 on June 29th. Very nervously I opened up the e-mail, and was very very very relieved when I saw the “Congratulations”.

It was a long time studying, and required a lot of time to learn all the material, but it was well worth the effort in the end. As of now I have passed the exam, but I will not receive the actual certification until around April of 2012. Needless to say, I think the hard part is past me.

So I’ve just started studying for the CISSP. I’ve been doing so for about a week now, and I am feeling very confident with all the content that I have read. The big thing I have noticed when working to obtain all my certifications is that the material needs to make logical sense, as I am very much a logical thinker. As long as the material is, then it will not be an issue for me understanding any of it.

Additionally, I’ve been working a lot with Backtrack 4 lately. I’ve been playing around with a lot of the tools again and I still believe it is the best security based linux distro available. The number and quality of tools built into it is superior than anything else I have used. It never hurts to to have a great understanding of these tools, and I’ll continue to do so.

I purchased a couple different books to help me study and obtain the CISSP. The first one, and probably the most popular one, is Shon Harris’s All in One Study guide. I also purchased her smaller book that contains practice tests. The other book I bought is the (ISC)2′s official study guide. It’ll be interesting to read through both and see which I book works best for me. As of now, I’m going to keep working my way through the Access Control domain. and on from there!

Well, it certainly has been a busy holiday season for myself. A significant amount of the time has been spent studying for the CEH, Certified Ethical Hacker exam. Anytime I had free time, it seems that I would feel guilty if I just watched tv instead of studying for the certification.

Thank goodness, the hard work paid off. I took the test last week and walked away with 87% correct, needing only 70% to pass. It was interesting, and a little tough, but I did feel confident throughout the whole exam. I felt confident going into it as I spent a lot of time using some of the tools that were discussed in the books I looked over, and it significantly helped to reinforce all the concepts of the books.

There were some questions that just did not seem to be covered in any of the material that I had read, which was a little surprising, but nonetheless, I was able to pass, and definitely walked away really happy.

So what’s next, I’m trying to decide.

My original goal was to receive 4 certifications, Net+, Sec+, CEH, and CISSP. I’ve achieved three of the four that I originally wanted. However, I am now feeling a little inclined to get the MCITP: Server Administrator. I feel that since I’ve just been going through Security certifications, I should go ahead and continue and try to go for the CISSP next. It wouldn’t seem to make a lot of sense to completely switch to a Microsoft certification, and then go back to a security one. It just makes more sense to go one after another.

Well, I think that’s what I’ll do.

I’ve had some time now since I’ve been Security+ certified, and I’ve been trying to think about the next steps that I am going to take. Largely, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on what it is that I want to do specifically with IT in the future. I know that I want to do something relating to security within IT. A dream job would be part of a company or owning my own that was involved in penetration testing and IT/Network/Business security auditing.

Knowing this, I’ve been trying to plan what certifications might help provide a good demonstration of my background knowledge that would be applicable to the job. First things first, I am going to get my Network+ before the end of the year. After taking the Security+, the Network+ does seem to be very similar. I’ve taken a practice test and it seems the only area that I am specifically need to work on is knowing the protocols for routing. Once I get this information down, I don’t think there should be a reason that I can’t pass it fairly quickly.

Once I have this, I am going to start studying for the CEH certification (Certified Ethical Hacker). I’ve come from a background in security, as it has always been something that I have been interested in. I’ve briefly looked over the certification and it seems that it is a lot of things that I already have had some exposure to. I do not think that this would be a significant challenge to learn.

Finally, once I have received all the previous certifications, my big certification that I want to go after is the CISSP. This is the big security certification that you can get. Having this would provide major credibility to myself, and it is something that I really want to get. I think I will look into taking a class, along with some book studying as well. This is very in depth about all formats of security, and would definitely require a good amount of knowledge. However, since it is something I am very interested in, I have no doubt that I will be able to become CISSP certified.