CISSP Study Guide

Just passed the exam last week and I must say this is the best source out there. I read this book once and highlighted the important things; on my second time reading I focused on the highlighted portions. This book is simple and concise, yet detailed enough to provide a comprehensive base for passing the exam. Each chapter has study questions at the end along with answers. There are also various "Notes" and "Exam Warnings" throughout each chapter that give tips on topics, and tactics to be aware of while answering exam questions. Even though the domains got consolidated from 10 to 8, this book still covers everything that's on the exam. Use this book as your basis of understanding, and supplement anything missing with any combination of test banks (no test bank contains actual CISSP questions, but they are a good source for drilling exercises and general test taking time management - I used crammasteronline), youtube videos, and/or bootcamps. The CISSP is not a purely knowledge-based exam, though - it's an understanding-based exam. The questions will come at you from so many different angles in the form of scenarios and you will have many, if not most, of your questions asking what is the MOST, FIRST, LEAST, BEST thing you should or should not do in a given situation. Even memorizing port numbers, encryption algorithms, and IP address classes will not put a dent in the exam, but at least it will add to your UNDERSTANDING of the topics. This is a management exam, so answers to the questions need to be made from that perspective.

After just passing the exam, I must say that this book was my favorite out of the multitude of options. As many others have said, this book gets to the point and skips a lot of the opinion and fluff found in the official guide and the Harris book. I think the prep questions all provided good value in understanding your weak areas. I hope to see them continue to add additional questions to the online test bank as time goes on. I found the test questions on the actual exam to be much more long winded than you will find in the book. So if you have not taken a formal exam in a while, you should find a way to prepare for that scenario. I obviously can't go into detail as far as what was actually on the exam, however I would not hesitate to say that if you have been in infosec for a couple years or more and go through this book, you will get a passing grade. Otherwise, integrate some time with the other two books mentioned to close the gap. You can also sign up for the mailing list as well in case you need help during your studies. It doesn't have a ton of traffic, but it is a great resource when you can't figure something out. Make sure to go through the online tests a couple days before your official test to understand what you have to spend the last couple crunch days on. Also I did like the format of the glossary which forces you to cross-reference terms based on their acronyms. That was a great idea!

I bought this book on the recommendation of a friend of mine who used both this book and the Shon Harris prep book. He said the Shon Harris book was a waste of time. From what I've read in the Shon Harris book, it goes way too in-depth for what's actually in the exam. You'll end up over-saturated and overwhelmed. I read this book cover-to-cover and did practice tests from the Shon Harris book. This book will NOT prepare you for the Shon Harris test questions (which are considerably harder than what's on the actual CISSP exam), but it will prepare you for the exam! One thing to note, the book says it comes with two full practice exams available online (it was published in 2012), but now in 2014, it doesn't seem as though the online content is available anymore, which is a shame. Maybe they're still there somewhere, but I didn't bother looking too hard for them. I would actually also recommend Sybex's CISSP Study Guide (6th ed). It's another 1,000 page tome, but as a single resource, I think it does an effective job at preparing you for the exam. It comes with 3 full tests plus other questions. I thought these questions were pretty close in difficulty to the actual exam. You can't go wrong with either book. I literally finished the exam three hours ago and passed on my first attempt.

Me compré este libro a principios de Octubre de 2012, me lo terminé de leer el 1 de Diciembre y haciendo muchos test en diferentes páginas de Internet me presenté al examen el 18 de Diciembre. Resultado: Tengo un nuevo apellido llamado CISSP!! :) Lo recomiendo porque va al grano, no se enrolla como otros libros, y además aprendes mucho.

great and on time

it is quick and great experience.

This is an okay book, not great but okay. It contains numerous small errors that make it annoying to read, e.g. swapping the figures 7.15 and 7.16, so that you begin to question the veracity of the contents. This is troubling given that you are only reading this in order to help study for a test. The book has to cover a lot of information in a small space, which means that each subject is not covered in depth. They do give comprehensive footnotes to allow you to dig deeper.

A Good book but not enough for the exam. This book should be used as secondary source. Use it along with Shon Harris