Product Description: The Third Edition of this proven All-in-One exam guide provides total coverage of the CISSP certification exam, which has again been voted one of the Top 10 IT certifications in 2005 by CertCities. Revised and updated using feedback from Instructors and students, learn security operations in the areas of telecommunications, cryptography, management practices, and more. Plan for continuity and disaster recovery. Update your knowledge of laws, investigations, and ethics. Plus, run the CD-ROM and practice with more than 500 all new simulated exam questions. Browse the all new electronic book for studying on the go. Let security consultant and author Shon Harris lead you to successful completion of the CISSP.
Must read if ... Nutshell review - If you are only going to read one book in preparation for the CISSP exam then you must read this one. It is extensive and covers all the bases.
Tough to get through, but worth it! I recently received word from ISC2 that I passed the CISSP exam. I'll be the first to admit that I test very well (used 2.25 of the 6 hours for the test), but I have to give credit to Shon Harris for this excellent book which helped me bring together all the information needed for this exam.
It's definitely true to read people describe the exam as a "mile wide and inch deep", so it shouldn't come as any great surprise to find this book is huge (~1,000 pages), and while it is technical in some areas, it is only superficially so. All the topics are covered at about the right depth to be aligned well with the exam.
My only quibbles are very minor, such as the by-lines at the beginnings of sections that started out cute, but became very irritating as they devolved into a sarcastic tone, and a lack of organization to the quick round-up of the concepts at the end of each chapter. Otherwise, this book is the entirity of the knowledge you will need to pass, but memorizing everything in the book isn't going to cut it - you will need a modicum of real-world experience to allow you to lay all this information out in a framework that meshes with how things actually work in the world.
Buy this book, read it thoroughly, apply a liberal amount of common sense, then pass the test.
Really is "All-In-One", but you can't be an imbecile I am a 25 year old infosec dude and found this book to be the only one necessary. I did practice exams online after reading through the ~1000 pages Shon Harris has put together. It reads well, and is not entirely boring. I think that anyone can pass the exam with just this book, but you can't be an imbecile. I have written exploit code before, researched vulnerabilities, and have been messing around with hacking since the 90's when I was in high school. So, many of the technical stuff I knew very well. With the CISSP, you also need to understand the non-technical side of things. Learning the other domains can be challenging. In the end, when taking the test, you learn to identify what they examiners are looking for. You may be yelling and screaming in your head during the exam that this question is ridiculous, and you would be right. You have to step back and pretend you are in high school again to answer the questions correctly. If you see the word "management", then you should always check that box. The are the tips I can pass on to would-be CISSP seekers. Good luck :-)
The Bible of CISSP material Simply put this book is the Bible of CISSP study material, if you read this book and understand the material and can apply it you will be in great shape for the CISSP exam.
Downside? The sheer size of this book can be intimidating
All-in-one as a study guide I just received an e-mail confirming I passed the test and I can say that this book is a really good overall reference. It has very good coverage of all the core domains that the CISSP exam covers and was practically my only study tool - definitely my only study book. I used the free exam questions at cccure.org (great reference) as well as some quick guides from that site (that are pretty much built off of the all-in-one and a couple of other books to provide quick reference).
I highly recommend this book (or the 4th edition which has just come out) to anyone considering taking the exam. While the exam is difficult, mastery of the subject matter is definitely possible with this guide and a bit of experience. The exam is very much concept-based, and by that I mean that you need to understand the concepts behind the core domains as oppsoed to just memorizing everything. Memorization is useful (and necessary) in a number of areas, but if you memorize without understanding the concepts there are plenty of questions that you can miss on the test. The exam really does a pretty good job of trying to draw on how well you understand the material. There are a number of people out there that state that the jokes or no good or there are gaps. First, it's not a comedy book. The style is meant to put the reader at ease so that the material can be more easily absorbed. Second, there are going to be gaps with any book because the exam is not written off of one. Plus, I tried reading the "official guide" a long time back. Dry, dry, dry, dry, dry. I couldn't force myself past 175 pages. And finally, there are a number of books that go into an absurd amount of detail. I think it's easy to get lost in that stuff. This one has good coverage without getting you lost in the weeds for an exam where that really isn't necessary. Overall I probably studied about 170 to 200 hours over a period of 3 to 4 months (but not every single day). Give yourself plenty of time to read and understand.
Also, the CD questions are a good way to test your comprehension. Use it. The end of the chapter questions are ok, but you should DEFINITELY use cccure.org to get a feel for how difficult questions will actually be and how they are worded on the test.
To anyone going for it I say good luck. It's not an easy test to take. As a frame of reference, I was able to complete it in about 4 hours - being really careful to read the questions well and also going back over the ones that I wasn't so sure about. It's grueling, but very doable.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
