Guidance on CISSP

[etauseef]

Dear All,

I am writing to seek guidance on the CISSP certification. 

I hold a PhD in Electrical Engineering from New Zealand and interested in doing the CISSP certification. I have around 13 years of teaching experience and a few years of Project Management and Software Development experience. I have taught courses including Computer Networks, Information and Coding Theory, Cryptography and Network Security. 

After a careful thought and consideration, I have decided to proceed with a certification in Cyber Security to strengthen my theoretical knowledge and develop further expertise in this area.. 

I wanted to consult and discuss my eligibility to register for the CISSP certification and pathway to become a CISSP certified. 

I would be really grateful for your help and guidance. Thanks!

Regards,

Tasneem

[AlecTrevelyan]

Hi and welcome to the community!

You can register for, study for, and take the CISSP exam whenever you want.

However, to become a CISSP, after passing the exam you need to go through the endorsement process which requires that you can prove you have 5 years cumulative paid work experience in 2 or more of the 8 domains of the CISSP CBK - I assume you have an appropriate bachelor's degree that will reduce the requirement down to 4 years.

Take a look at the current exam outline here:

https://www.isc2.org/-/media/ISC2/Certifications/Exam-Outlines/CISSP-Exam-Outline-2018-v718.ashx

Review the tasks and subtasks in each domain. Do you have 5 years (probably 4 in your case) of cumulative paid work experience covering at least 1 task/subtask in 2 of the 8 domains? If not, even if you pass the exam you can only become an Associate of ISC2 until you have gained enough experience to qualify as a CISSP.

NB - the CISSP exam is updated circa every 3 years to ensure it is kept current with advances in the field. As such, there will be an update to the CISSP exam on 1st May 2021, so depending on how long you think it will take you to prepare for the exam review the appropriate exam outline - the new one can be found here:

https://www.isc2.org/-/media/ISC2/Certifications/Exam-Outlines/CISSP-Exam-Outline-English-April-2021...

In terms of study material, there is a link in the back of the exam outlines to the suggested references list:

https://www.isc2.org/certifications/References#accordion-b9bcc83d08c24c44befa6dba88531d6e

Another often cited study resource that doesn't appear in the suggested references list is Security Engineering by Ross Anderson. He has a 3rd edition due out at the end of this month, but his 2nd edition will still be extremely useful and is available for free:

https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html

[Gagz]

Hi,

Were you able to get your teaching experience counted for meet experience requirements? Thanks