Special thanks to Luke Ahmed and his Facebook Group: CISSP Exam Preparation – Study Notes and Theory.

After a prolonged 2-month journey that takes 250 hours in 45 effective study days, I finally cleared the CISSP exam today. Thanks to the new CAT examination with 100 questions in 3 hours, the threshold to obtaining CISSP is lowered to a reasonable level, even though it is still quite challenging.

It’s nice that the CISSP exam is reasonably challenging. I wish you all the best to clear it ASAP.

The following resources are helpful to me:

• TOOLS: when in doubt, google it, wiki it, and watch it!!!!!
  • Google
  • Wikipedia
  • YouTube
•  Text
  • (ISC) 2 CISSP Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official Study Guide 8th Edition
  • CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide, Seventh Edition 7th Edition
• Sample Questions
  • Sybex Online Practice Exam (buying a book is required)
  • CISSP Practice Exams
  • Test Engine: Vumingo
•  References
  • CBK Suggested References for CISSP
  • The Facebook Group: CISSP Exam Preparation – Study Notes and Theory
  • Nick’s Organized Sunflower CISSP Notes
  • NIST SP 800 series and FIPS 199 and 200
  • ISO Standards: 27001/27005
  • Microsoft Windows Common Criteria Evaluation Security Target
  • Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria [“Orange Book”]
  • How I Passed the CISSP Exam! (My 12 week method)
  • CISSP Practice Questions of the Day from IT Dojo

PS. I am sorry to let you know that I’ve attended the official CISSP classroom-based training in Taipei and it’s a total waste of money and disappointing. The text for this class from ISC2 is just a bunch of slides with terribly poor quality and the instructor, from my point of view, is not prepared and qualified for this class either.