Cissp Exam Cram

by Mandy Andress

Book Overview

The CISSP Exam Cram is an exciting new study guide for the rapidly growing number of professionals seeking to pass the CISSP certification exam. Clear, concise, and highly focused content lays out... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1588800296
• ISBN13: 9781588800299
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Coriolis Group Books
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.7" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Good for review

This book is very good for a review of the CISSP material. but do not use it as your main reference.

Overall it does what it says it's designed for.

Worrying about network security has become more important than ever and making sure that your network is safe from the outside is a paramount concern for everyone. The CISSP exam is a measure of how well you have created a safe haven for your data. In the 260 pages the author covers the exam objectives, although you will need other sources of study material to fill in the more detailed information you cover. The Access Control section covers DAC, MAC, rights, and permissions, methods of attack, spam and sniffers, thus giving you a firm foundation to build on. Moving on you go over telecommunication and network security where you begin with the OSI model, topologies, IPSec and TCP/IP and then move on to LANs, WANs, SSL, firewalls, HDLC and SDLC and finish up with NAT and ARP. This section is made for the network manager and even without the exam you have a wealth of information presented. After that the Security Management Practice section is next which show you how to handle viruses, setting up a knowledge base system to aide in the troubleshooting process, working with Data Wherehouses, and the very important asymmetric and symmetric encryption. There is also coverage of the legal and ethical concerns as well as physical security. Missing from the book is a practice test cd although there are questions in the book. Overall this is a nice exam prep book and should be very useful to those striving for the certification.

Your expectations for this book define your review of it

I am a senior engineer for network security operations. I bought "CISSP Exam Cram" (CEC) as a study aid for the CISSP exam, which I completed yesterday. CISSP candidates are not allowed to discuss the contents of the test, but I can comment on the quality of CEC's text. I consider myself a tough critic, but I'm surprised that earlier reviewers treat CEC so harshly. If you want a comprehensive treatise on all aspects of the CISSP exam, CEC will disappoint. If you're looking for supplementary material to jog your memory before the test, CEC is more than adequate. Some criticize CEC because it doesn't thoroughly discuss each topic. They may forget this is an "exam cram," with only 200 pages of text for all ten domains of the Common Body of Knowledge (CBK). You're not going to read detailed essays on the Bell-LaPadula confidentiality model or exhaustive descriptions of the Kerberos authentication process. You will see short discussions of these topics, reminding you they may appear on the exam. Furthermore, I found most of these explanations of higher quality than those in "The CISSP Prep Guide." Compare the coverage of SYN floods on p. 16 of CEC with p. 76 of "The CISSP Prep Guide." Here (and elsewhere), Mandy Andress knows network security, while Ronald Kurtz and Russell Vines do not. I concur with earlier concerns regarding URLs in the "Need to Know More?" sections. SecurityFocus appears far too often, while more worthy sites are ignored. The quizzes at the end of each chapter are far too easy, while those of "The CISSP Prep Guide" are more helpful. Reading CEC is obviously not sufficient preparation for the CISSP exam. I also read "The CISSP Prep Guide," and reviewed a CBK outline on the Internet. My experience in the field proved better preparation than these references. Use CEC as a memory jogger right before the test. I read it the night before and it helped me focus my last-minute studies.

I agree with the author

None of the Exam Cram series of books go into great detail. They're designed to help "cram" before the exam to refresh your memory. Coriolis publishes another series of books (Exam Prep) to prepare you for a test. They just haven't published one for the CISSP. I haven't read the book yet, but I gave it 5 stars to offset the low ratings given by those who didn't know what they were buying.