CISSPs: How did you prepare for the CCSP exam?

[ckazle]

As a CISSP who studied for and passed the CCSP exam, how did you prepare?  What did you find valuable?  Did you learn through self-study, if so, what books did you buy?  Did you attend an official training course, if so, which one?  What was your study plan?  What's your secret for success?  We want to hear from you! 

[Markonweb]

I used the official online course offered by ISC2, the CCSP all-in-one Exam Guide, and the official CCSP CBK. I purchased the latter two on kindle and used the text-to-speech at 3 or 4x during my daily commute. You get used to the faster speeds on the kindle and it lets you 'read' a book cover to cover very quickly (I usually listen to each book at least twice to reinforce concepts and identify knowledge gap areas). I always use more than one source for certs. The CSA CCSK is a great bookend to the CCSP... just be aware that the CCSK exam will be updated in December to use the v4 guidance. Vendor certs are useful and in demand. AWS now have 7 and Azure has 3 exams focused on their cloud environment.

[Markonweb]

. (mod/admin, please delete -- duplicate post)

[jwilsonjx]

Great question,

I recently passed the CCSP and am currently undergoing the endorsement process. I have both the CISSP as well as the CSSLP. I believe that the study time and prep work that went into both of these was an added benefit from the start.

I was fortunate enough to be provided with a 1 week training course from GlobalKnowledge. This 40 hours of preperation was decent. At times it felt like we were going through the material too fast. I spent a few weeks after the class re-reading the course material. I read the entirety of CSA Cloud Security Guidance (v4). I created flash cards help me associate ISO, NIST, and other items such as GBLA, SOC1-3, HIPAA, etc. with what they corresponded with. I also downloaded the official ISC2 CCSP mobile study application. I took the app's full 125 practice exam a few times. I watched a few YouTube videos that covered topics such as federation and TPM.

This was the first ISC2 exam that I have taken that I had some level of confidence that I had passed.

[thomaskung]

It was quite a hard time to prepare for the CCSP. I have come across two official materials from ISC2; one is the Official Guide and the another one is the Official CBK. I would say they are complements to each other and I recommend to review both in your journey. The Official Guide is a brief summary on the syllabus. It is a good starting point of the study to let yourself familiarize with what CCSP consists of. The Official CBK is a textbook of the syllabus which includes all details around the topics. It is better to go through once you have finished the Guide. Apart from the official materials, I would suggest reading additional materials from CSA. The CSA CCM (Cloud Control Matrix) is more or less the industry best practice on Cloud Security. It is a good tool to help you tidy up your knowledge with real-life scenarios. Last but not least, you are recommended to obtain the CISSP first as the MCQ patterns are quite similar IMO. Hope you would find this advice useful and wish you a pass in CCSP examination.

[beyer]

I was interested in the SSCP but there was a limited number of materials available for it.  Since the domains were similar and there was a lot of books out there on the CISSP, I used some CISSP materials.   My main ones were the official ISC guides with the Shon Harris book when I needed more detail.  I did take a bootcamp class just before the test, but I really feel the self-study time spent before then was the critical component.

I spent about one hour reading each morning for about 6 months for the SSCP then about 3 more months on the remaining domains for the CISSP.

I did as many practice questions as I could get my hands on.  None of them matched the format or even the content of the questions on the test, but they were helpfull for memorizing details of things like pki.

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@ckazle wrote:

As a CISSP who studied for and passed the CCSP exam, how did you prepare?  What did you find valuable?  Did you learn through self-study, if so, what books did you buy?  Did you attend an official training course, if so, which one?  What was your study plan?  What's your secret for success?  We want to hear from you! 

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[KStride]

About 2 months before my exam date I took the 5 day ISC2 hosted seminar that went over the CISSP content.  I then used the next several weekends reading 11th hour CISSP, and taking several practice exams.  

[CloudNoob]

Jalberts - interested in getting those books off your shelf? I can pay for shipping also. Thanks

[kimberdray]

The ISC2 CCSP CBK and a self-paced OnDemand course helped me to focus in on course/exam content and the associated certification domains. However, I felt that being an experienced CISSP, in addition to many years of considering the implications of moving to the cloud, with strict provincial privacy regulations related to cloud use, contributed to my readiness to successfully complete the exam.

Although there was flash cards and encouragement to memorize plenty of terminology in the exam resources, I would not suggest that rote memorization of terms or crash study will help with the exam questions. You will need to have a strong understanding of the domain content in order to problem solve and apply the knowledge in scenario type questions.

[Verheyp]

Took a class , once a week for ten weeks. Every week a domain , last two weeks exam prep. After that studied for 4 more weeks every and every night. Official book, cybrary videos shon harris....sybex exam questions.... it was though but worth it....

[DavidS]

My work at the time afforded me the opportunity to spend about 1 day a week to study for the CSSIP. Over the course of about 6 months, 4 days a month (20+ days to create a habit), I read the Shon Harris CISSP exam book, and then read ISC2's official CBK book last, so that I would have their specific way of thinking/wording fresh in my head. On those days I took a few notes and used the exam prep materials provided with those books. I also, tweeted one 140 character summary of what I read after each reading session. I never re-read the tweets, but the act of summarizing everything I just read in one tweet was beneficial for me.

When it came time to schedule the exam I had the opportunity to take a 5 day boot camp that ended with the opportunity to take the test on the 6th day. The boot camp was basically a mix of a cram session and review session for me. In the end I don’t think I really needed the boot camp. But, it did not hurt, and I had 5 days of opportunity to network with other future CISSPs, which was very valuable.

As I walked out of the exam with a few others leaving at the same time, I was the only one that thought I had passed the test. I was worried I was being too over confident. But, I did pass it on my first try.

The two things I always stress to people interested in taking the CISSP are to take your time. Study at least once or twice a week for a few months, don’t cram. This allows it to become habit to have the CBK in your head space and on your mind as if it is an everyday thing. The second thing is review the official ISC2 books, materials, and prep exams last. This allows their way of thinking and wording of questions to be fresh in your mind, so that you can more easily answer the questions the way they expect you to rather than the way you would normally want to.

In summery make the CBK a habit, and understand their mind set.