Passed CCSP Exam - My Experience

[Masahiro]

I (provisionally) passed the CCSP exam today. Good luck to the next one!

Related Certifications

• Dec-2019: Certificated as CISSP (attended official training）
• Dec-2019: Certificated as CCSK by CSA (attended official training）

Relevant Work Experience

• Developed security guidelines for AWS, Azure and GCP users based on CIS Benchmarks
• Developed security guidelines for users of cloud services based on CIS Controls and ISO/IEC 27017
• Support for CASB demonstration experiments
• Support for defining digital workplace requirements (zero-trust security)

Motivation for taking CCSP exam

• To provide an opportunity to relearn cloud security experience in a systematic and comprehensive way
• To be a pioneer since there is probably no one in our company who has taken CCSP

Study period and time

• Period: July 4, 2021 - October 5, 2021
• Daily time: 1 to 2 hours/day
• Total time: about 140 hours

Materials used

1. CCSP Official Practice Tests Online Test Bank (Chapter 1 - 6)
2. Textbook of CCSK Plus (CCSK official training)
3. CSA Guidance V4.0
4. CCSP For Dummies with Online Practice (Kindle version)

Collaborators

1. Japan Chapter's Cloud Security Study WG members
2. Several people who replied to my questions in (ISC)2 Community
3. Experts in my company

Study procedure

1. Each day, I solved 20 questions of the material #1
2. First, I focused on extracting questions that I got wrong, and ones that I got right but wasn't confident about (setting flags).
3. Next, I re-solved the questions I got wrong, flagged the questions I got right but wasn't sure about, and repeated until I got all the questions right.
4. Then, as I solved the flagged questions, I removed the flags from the questions that I got wrong and the ones that I answered correctly and with confidence.
5. Finally, I repeated steps 3 and 4 until I answered all the questions correctly and the flags were removed.

Mindset

1. When I am in a questions-setting situation in the consulting field, I ask myself if I can accurately give correct advice to my client with reasons.
2. First of all, try to clear my doubts by using the materials and the Internet.
3. If I still have questions, ask them first to the WG, then to the experts or to (ISC)2 Community, and leave no question unclear.

Thoughts on the exam

1. I left about 40 minutes after finishing the exam and felt it was easy to finish the exam in 180 minutes.
2. There were many unfamiliar words and questions that I had never seen before, but I think I was able to cope with them because I had a deep understanding of each question in CCSP Official Practice Tests.
3. I was a little worried that I had not read through CCSP reference books such as the material #4, but it was not a problem.
4. As expected, I feel that I was able to organize, cover, and strengthen my knowledge of cloud security.

[bughunter449]

I think we can do it.. I appeared today for exam but was not able to clear it.

[dicksonfu]

I prepared CCSP for roughly 40 hours in less than 3-week. I only use the following materials available on O'reilly, since I have free subscription provided by my employer. I passed in the first attempt.

CCSP - Certified Cloud Security Professional Crash Course - delivered by Michael J. Shannon

(ISC)2 CCSP Certified Cloud Security Professional Official Study Guide, 2nd Edition by Ben Malisow

[Until_then]

The official (ISC)^2 study guide is now in 3rd edition. This might be best in preparation for the new exam which came out several months ago.

[Zhen_Zhang]

Congratulations! thanks a lot.

[abhattac5]

Hi @Masahiro - while your post is now something like 1.5yrs old, it really inspired me on my journey.  The very detailed approach you posted really helped me figure out a good plan.  I can now proudly join you among those who have passed the CCSP.  Thank you so much for the post and inspiration!

[dkleung]

Hello - Exactly, I went through the same CCSP process and training as you did, and I also failed. 

Did you ever take the CCSP exam again? I would be interested to know your journey and current status. 

Thanks,

Daniel Leung, CISSP 

[cyberfox]

Congratulations!