CISSP Tips and Tricks | How to find your study materials – Videos and books

In this video, we’re going to talk about some of the materials you need to pass your exam.
And here we’re going to focus on videos and books.
In the next video, we’ll talk about practice questions and all the other materials that can help you on your exam.
And as mentioned before, and I’m sure I will again, people have different ways of learning and they need different things in an instructor.
So some years ago, I gave a live class to Cyber Command in Hawaii.
And before I came out, they have been given a video boot camp from another instructor.
40% of the class thought the videos were awesome, 40 % that they were all right, and the last 20% thought they were horrible.
The worst thing they had ever seen.
Personally, I thought they were good videos.
But that’s not the point.
The point is everybody needs something different.
So for any of the many certifications that I hold, I start every time by going and looking at people who just passed the exam, which resources did they use, what was their study approach, any tips, any tricks, anything really that I can use in my plan and in my studying.
And that is really what I’m trying to do with these videos.
Saving you the time and sharing the knowledge that I have and the feedback that I have received from my students on what worked for them and what didn’t.
I’m going to start out with looking at video courses, then books, then free materials and then questions.
And I do it in this order because that is how I study for my certifications.
And it is also the way that most of my students do.
And the reason I do videos before the book is the books are huge.
1200, 1600 pages, they can be overwhelming and some of them are really dry.
So to be more gentle to yourself, having a higher chance of passing because you do not give up, I suggest starting with the videos and in the lecture where we talk about the study plan, I will go more in-depth on the approach and how to actually study.
So for now, let’s start out with the videos.
And luckily for you, there is a ton of good CISSP videos in the market.
Obviously, I think my own are part of that.
But as with anything else, when you need to go find the instructor that works for you, go look at their preview videos.
Is this instructor something that is going to work for me?
If you’re wanting to see some of my preview videos, you can go to Thorteaches.com/cissp/.
And here you can see I have three main video courses that I recommend.
And I, of course, recommend my own.
I think my courses are great.
But I also think that Luke Ahmed’s Study Notes and Theory and itpro.TV with Adam Gordon are amazing courses as well.
And I called these two out because they are great instructors, they’re great at conveying the curriculum and they truly care about advancing the profession.
And another reason why I suggest getting at least two to three video courses is every instructor is good at explaining certain topics and they have unique points of view that will help you on the exam.
So look at thorteaches.com/cissp/, look at my preview videos, go to studynotesandtheory.com, look at Luke’s preview videos.
And then finally itpro.tv and look at Adam’s.
I also want to mention other on-demand videos that my students really like, but I have not seen myself.
First off, Cybrary. Kelly Handerhan was for years, the go-to CISSP course up until the point where Cybrary became a paid platform.
What I hear from students is that it is still a good course, but not always something they want to pay for.
Larry Greenblatt is another instructor that a ton of students really like, but I have also talked to some that have the complete opposite opinion.
Go preview some of his lectures, see if he works for you.
I think the people who don’t like it is when he starts telling stories that some students don’t think are related to the curriculum.
Either way, go take a look, see if it works for you.
Next up, we have Linda or LinkedIn learning, and that is Mike Chappell.
He wrote the official Cybex book.
I personally like him as an instructor, but at least for the linked in course, the feedback I get from students is sometimes it’s not the right point of view, meaning he will explain a concept and then he will say so when you study for your security plus something, something, something meaning they recycle those videos from the security plus course and it is possible to get the wrong point of view.
Security plus is hands on, the CISSP is management level.
The students that I have that love has course well, just kind of ignore those videos and just know the right point of view.
I also have a good deal of students that love Sari Green, she’s on Safari, again.
Go take a look at the preview videos and see if you like her style.
And then finally, I also wanted to mention Destination Certification, go search for their YouTube channel, they have some excellent videos on the domain’s and mind mapping.
And then finally, boot camps and boot camps, I have a sort of ambivalent relationship with because they can either be super awesome, amazing, or they can be really, really horrible.
I have had the pleasure of being a student in both kinds.
And the hard thing really here is it is so dependent on the instructor.
If you get a great instructor, it is most likely going to be awesome.
If you get a horrible instructor, well, then the experience is probably going to be bad.
And there are a ton of companies offering CISSP training, either in person or live online.
If I was taking one now, I would spend a good chunk of time researching the company and asking what is the name of the instructor and then research them.
Some boot camps can be as low as a thousand dollars, others six to eight thousand.
If you’re going to spend that much money, you need to ensure you get quality.
The ones I have on the list here are the ones that I know are good.
So any ISC2 official boot camp should be good.
I have never heard from a student that took one that said it was bad, which makes sense right.
They vet their instructors.
Next up, I have SANS, same thing here.
Expensive boot camp, but high quality.
And then finally, Prabh Nair.
He does live online boot camps and students really like him.
And before you ask, hey, Thor, is global knowledge or firebrand or whatever training company good?
I have no clue.
That is why I say if you’re going to take a boot camp with any other company than the ones I have recommended, go research them and go research the instructor.
There are a ton of amazing CISSP instructors that I have not mentioned, but do your due diligence and do your due care.
And I think that should be enough for video courses.
Now let’s look at books.
Books should take less time to talk about than the videos.
Really, you need one of the two main books, either the Cybex book or OSG– Official Study Guide or this is All in One, AIO.
Just like with the videos, go read two, three paragraphs from each book and then pick the one that you like the most.
I personally like the AIO better.
It does go more in depth with some things, but it is also longer.
At some point,
I surveyed my students and I think about 60% like the Cybex book, the official study guide better about 40% preferred the AIO.
Either way, go look at them, find the one that you like and then buy it.
That then brings us to the secondary books.
They’re not strictly required, but they will give you a better chance of passing.
Both Wentz Wu’s book and Luke Ahmed’s are relatively new and I think they’re pretty great.
Wentz’ book is going to help you with that super critical mindset that you need for the exam to answer everything from an IT security manager’s point of view.
And the book from Luke Ahmed is going to help you with deconstructing questions, which I think is a super important skill to have for your exam.
Then we have the 11th Hour, and the 11th Hour is a bit of an abnormality because it has not been updated since 2015, meaning the 2018 and the 2021 CISSP updates is not included.
And even with that I still recommend it.
It is a great book for the last month or so, just to fresh up on all the topics, or at least the ones that I included, both the 2018 and 2021 updates were very minor, not really any curriculum taken out and maybe two, three percent of new curriculum added.
And then finally we have CISSP CBK.
This is the truth of all CISSP knowledge.
It is also insanely dry and super difficult to read.
So this I really recommend for a reference work.
If you have some specific topic, you’re not completely sure of what ISC2 thinks is the truth, then crack up the CISSP CBK and find the answer.
And no, there is no single resource that you can use to study for CISSP.
You can’t just read the CISSP CBK from end to end and know everything.
Just like in our security posture where we want the multiple overlapping complementary security measures, here you want multiple overlapping complementary resources.
And with that we are done with this lecture.
I will see you in the next one where we talk about practice questions and other useful resources.