How Hard Is It To Get CISSP Certification?

24-Mar-2021

There is no certification as popular in the cybersecurity and information security world as the CISSP certification. The CISSP certification can either be called famous or infamous, depending on how one looks at it. In any case, due to its massive popularity nowadays many people are asking the question – “How hard is it to get CISSP certification?”

How Difficult Is It To Get CISSP Certification?

The short and simple answer is that it is incredibly difficult to get a CISSP certification. In this article, we will make a humble attempt to provide a satisfactory answer to this question. We will discuss several noteworthy features of the CISSP certification exam. We will also provide some tips for creating a preparation strategy for the CISSP certification exam.

Also Read: How to Pass the CISSP Certification Exam in the 1st Attempt in 2021?

Along with that, we will also provide some tips to follow while appearing for and actually taking the exam. We are sure that this article will prove to be very helpful for readers from all walks of life. We will be organizing the article very nicely into separate sections with clear and informative subheadings so that the reader can navigate through it easily. There will also be short mentions of CISSP Certification Training Online throughout the article.

What is the CISSP certification exam?

Before one can acquire the CISSP certification, one has to pass the CISSP certification exam. The CISSP certification exam is an exam of such incredible difficulty and complexity that even the most determined aspirants are daunted in the course of preparing for it. In most of these cases, they don’t take the CISSP Certification Online either.

The CISSP certification exam is designed by the (ISC)2. This is because the CISSP certification is governed by the (ISC)2, which is the leading cybersecurity and information security governing body in the world. The (ISC)2 consists of a panel of cybersecurity experts and information security experts who are very competent programmers and software developers themselves.

As a result, the questions they design and include in the question paper of the CISSP certification exam tend to bewilder and bamboozle the CISSP certification aspirants very easily and very quickly. In fact, there are entire study groups dedicated to finding the solutions to the questions of the CISSP certification exams of the past year and then discussing the solutions.

One of the main reasons why the CISSP certification exam is so daunting for aspirants of all classes is that the exam has an inconceivably vast syllabus. The syllabus consists of 8 domains of knowledge, each one of which is very sizeable and is full of complex concepts and topics.

The 8 domains of knowledge are as follows -

• Security and Risk Management
• Asset Security
• Security Engineering
• Communication and Network Security
• Identity and Access Management
• Security Assessment and Testing
• Security Operations
• Software Development Security

As has been mentioned above, each one of these 8 domains of knowledge is very vast in their own right and are full of complex concepts and topics. Mastering any one of these domains of knowledge can take up to one year.

So, when an exam requires the candidates to study all 8 of these domains of knowledge all at once, it is very understandable why many of them give up at once. After looking at this syllabus one can imagine what a daunting task it is to prepare for the CISSP certification exam.

Also Read: Is The CISSP Certification Worth It?

Some Preparation Tips For CISSP Certification

Proceed domain by domain -

This is a very important point to keep in mind while preparing for the CISSP certification exam. The candidate should take care to not try to cover more than one domain at the same time. If they do that, they will become confused by the different kinds of concepts and topics contained in the various domains of knowledge.

Instead, they should proceed systematically, going through one domain at a time. They should see which domain has the smallest weightage in the exam and start their preparation from that domain. They will find that if they focus on one domain at a time, they will be able to progress through their preparation very smoothly and very quickly.

They should also take copious notes as they are progressing through the domains. These notes should contain all their doubts about the various concepts and topics of the domains. They should also contain any points which the candidates think they might not be able to remember in the future. Making notes like this will aid the candidate’s revision of the concepts and topics contained in the various domains of knowledge.

Take practice exams regularly -

It is very important for the candidates to take practice exams regularly. By taking practice exams regularly the candidate will get into a habit of sitting for exams that last for a long time. There is another benefit to taking practice exams regularly and that is that the candidate will be able to familiarize himself with the pattern of the CISSP certification exam.

By solving questions that follow the same pattern again and again the candidate will gain a lot of confidence about taking the actual CISSP certification exam and confidence always boosts the thinking power and the mental clarity of a person. This will lead to the candidate achieving a much higher score in the CISSP certification exam.

Identify the knowledge areas one is weak in -

When the candidate takes the practice exams, they should not just consider the matter to have ended there. They should bide their time and wait for the results patiently. When the results of the practice exams do come, they should carry out a minute and thorough analysis of their score.

They should take careful note of the questions which they weren’t able to answer fully and by means of doing that they should identify which areas of knowledge they are weak in. By thus identifying the areas of knowledge they are weak in the candidate will be able to detect which parts of the syllabus he has not covered thoroughly enough and rectify those shortcomings of his preparation.

In which order should the domains be studied?

The answer to this question depends on the previous background and prior experience of the candidate. Since the CISSP certification exam has very extensive experience requirements, it is very reasonable to assume that the candidate has at least some prior experience in the field of cybersecurity or information security.

So, the candidate should carry out a careful evaluation of his past experience and present abilities and compare them with the 8 domains of knowledge present in the syllabus. In this way, he should identify which concepts and topics from the syllabus coincide with his past experience and present abilities.

Once he has identified the domain of knowledge that matches his skills and knowledge most closely, he should choose that domain as the starting point of his preparation.

Tips For Taking The CISSP Certification Exam -

1. Scenario-based questions -

The candidate will face many scenario-based questions in the exam. These questions will be drawn from real-world problems and will require a lot of practical and real-world experience to solve.

2. Read through the entire test -

When the candidate gets the test the first thing, he should do is that he should read through the whole test once carefully. In this way, he will get an idea of the general pattern of the exam and he will also come to know the general outline of the questions in advance.

3. Identify the keywords in the questions -

One thing which many candidates fail to notice is that often-various questions in the exam are interlinked with each other. What this means is that often some questions contain information in them that is relevant to other questions in the exam and which serves as a hint for the answers to other questions.

4. Answer the correct questions first -

The candidate should not attempt questions that seem to contain incorrect information or which seem to not have any correct options. They should flag such questions as incorrect and move on to other questions.

5. Eliminate wrong answers first -

The candidate should try to identify those options in the answers which are completely incorrect using the process of elimination.

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