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Clarke Moyer CISSP Certification Passing Guide

BLUF: To pass the CISSP do 4 things

  1. Create a contest publicly with another person to complete your CISSP before they complete a similar or identical educational objective
    1. Note I lost this ‘race’ by one day but both of us still passed so it is a win
  2. Buy your vouchers and a training plan at the lowest cost possible from a source that will give your test voucher and a re-take.
  3. Take a ton of practice tests from as many sources as your access or funding allows
    1. ISC Official Online, Army Skillport
  4. Don’t over study and test as soon as you’re over the 80% pass percentage in the official tests
    1. This is why you have a re-take so you don’t over study

My approach to passing the CISSP was slow and non-regimented. If you want to reduce your stress I would not follow my methods, but I did pass the first attempt and don’t think that I over studied. 

TIMELINE: Each year I try and do at least one educational objective for my company performance review. I do this for several reasons.

  1. I like to learn new things and believe strongly in lifelong learning for the sake of expanding one’s knowledge.
  2. I like having something external to my current work to show that I am not stagnating and by extension improving my resume with industry respected factors.
  3. When I do the performance reviews of others I don’t want it to come off as ‘do as I say not as I do’ when I ask for the educational objectives of others.

In most years this educational objective aligns to an industry certification.

In most years this educational objective aligns to an industry certification.

Books / Materials:

Training Programs:

  • Ones that I took in whole or in part
    • CIO/G-6 NETCOM IA – Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) 2018 (Free if you hold a CAC)
    • Simplilearn Online Classroom Flexi-Pass (2,319.00)
      • Decent course but not as good as I wanted it to be. The videos were hard to download for offline use and still get the checkmark for completion. All in all, I would do this only so that you have a formal course to go back to and the 5 practice tests were good. This package I negotiated for an included voucher and a re-take voucher. This is worth $1,398 of the total cost so the course and tests are effectively only costing $1000 for a self paced and live video program. I would still not recommend this unless you are a very good self study person and commit to the rest of the tools. This course alone will not get it done. 
      •  https://www.simplilearn.com/cyber-security/cissp-certification-training
  • Ones that I heard about but did not take
    • https://portal.cyberforce.site (ISC)2 (TM) CISSP (R) Certification Prep 2018 (DISA) (Free CAC Required)
    • Syracuse NY ‘onward to opportunities’ Veterans Program
      • Program for vets that gives access to the Skillport program and also includes a voucher for the test.
      • Most that have taken this route don’t feel it is complete enough (skillport) but great that it includes the voucher. This course alone will not get it done.
      • https://ivmf.syracuse.edu/onward-to-opportunity/
    • Infosec Institute CISSP Flex Basic 1 year access
      • Includes the voucher and 1 year of access to videos, tests, and other support materials.

Test / Quiz options

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