CSC 260 - CISSP® Exam Preparation

Course Description

Aiming to break into cybersecurity, advance your career, and set yourself apart from the competition?

The Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®) exam preparation course offers a comprehensive review of the knowledge needed to effectively design, engineer, and manage an organization's overall security posture. This course supports the review and reinforcement of key concepts while helping identify areas that require further study for the CISSP exam. The content is aligned with and thoroughly covers the eight domains of the ISC2 CISSP Common Body of Knowledge (CBK®), ensuring relevance across all areas of cybersecurity.

Course Features:

• Instruction from an ISC2 Authorized Instructor
• Official ISC2 Student Training Guide
• Chapter quizzes
• Interactive flash cards to reinforce learning
• Real-world learning activities and scenarios
• Case studies and discussions
• Post-course assessment questions to gauge exam readiness

Course Details

Learning Outcomes:

By the completion of this course, successful students will be able to:

• Apply fundamental concepts and methods related to the fields of information technology and security.
• Align overall organizational operational goals with security functions and implementations.
• Determine how to protect assets of the organization as they go through their lifecycle.
• Leverage the concepts, principles, structures, and standards used to design, implement, monitor, and secure operating systems, equipment, networks, applications, and those controls used to enforce various levels of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
• Apply security design principles to select appropriate mitigations for vulnerabilities present in common information system types and architectures.
• Explain the importance of cryptography and the security services it can provide in today’s digital and information age.
• Evaluate physical security elements relative to information security needs.
• Evaluate the elements that comprise communication and network security relative to information security needs.
• Leverage the concepts and architecture that define the associated technology and implementation systems and protocols at Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model layers 1–7 to meet information security needs.
• Determine appropriate access control models to meet business security requirements.
• Apply physical and logical access controls to meet information security needs.
• Differentiate between primary methods for designing and validating test and audit strategies that support information security requirements.
• Apply appropriate security controls and countermeasures to optimize an organization’s operational function and capacity.
• Assess information systems risks to an organization’s operational endeavours.
• Determine appropriate controls to mitigate specific threats and vulnerabilities.
• Apply information systems security concepts to mitigate the risk of software and systems vulnerabilities throughout the systems’ lifecycles.

Topics:

Chapter 1: The Information Security Environment

• Justify an organizational code of ethics.
• Relate confidentiality, integrity, availability, non-repudiation, authenticity, privacy and safety to due care and due diligence.
• Relate information security governance to organizational business strategies, goals, missions, and objectives.
• Apply the concepts of cybercrime to data breaches and other information security compromises.
• Relate legal, contractual, and regulatory requirements for privacy and data protection to information security objectives.
• Relate transborder data movement and import-export issues to data protection, privacy, and intellectual property protection.

Chapter 2: Information Asset Security

• Relate the IT asset management and data security lifecycle models to information security.
• Explain the use of information classification and categorization, as two separate but related processes.
• Describe the different data states and their information security considerations.
• Describe the different roles involved in the use of information, and the security considerations for these roles.
• Describe the different types and categories of information security controls and their use.
• Select data security standards to meet organizational compliance requirements.

Chapter 3: Identity and Access Management (IAM)

• Explain the identity lifecycle as it applies to human and nonhuman users.
• Compare and contrast access control models, mechanisms, and concepts.
• Explain the role of authentication, authorization, and accounting in achieving information
• security goals and objectives.
• Explain how IAM implementations must protect physical and logical assets.
• Describe the role of credentials and the identity store in IAM systems.

Chapter 4: Security Architecture and Engineering

• Describe the major components of security engineering standards.
• Explain major architectural models for information security.
• Explain the security capabilities implemented in hardware and firmware.
• Apply security principles to different information systems architectures and their environments.
• Determine the best application of cryptographic approaches to solving organizational information security needs.
• Manage the use of certificates and digital signatures to meet organizational information security needs.
• Discover the implications of the failure to use cryptographic techniques to protect the supply chain.
• Apply different cryptographic management solutions to meet the organizational information security needs.
• Verify cryptographic solutions are working and meeting the evolving threat of the real world.
• Describe defences against common cryptographic attacks.
• Develop a management checklist to determine the organization’s cryptologic state of health and readiness.

Chapter 5: Communication and Network Security

• Describe the architectural characteristics, relevant technologies, protocols and security considerations of each of the layers in the OSI model.
• Explain the application of secure design practices in developing network infrastructure.
• Describe the evolution of methods to secure IP communications protocols.
• Explain the security implications of bound (cable and fibre) and unbound (wireless) network environments.
• Describe the evolution of, and security implications for, key network devices.
• Evaluate and contrast the security issues with voice communications in traditional and VoIP infrastructures.
• Describe and contrast the security considerations for key remote access technologies.
• Explain the security implications of software-defined networking (SDN) and network virtualization technologies.

Chapter 6: Software Development Security

• Recognize the many software elements that can put information systems security at risk.
• Identify and illustrate major causes of security weaknesses in source code.
• Illustrate major causes of security weaknesses in database and data warehouse systems.
• Explain the applicability of the OWASP framework to various web architectures.
• Select malware mitigation strategies appropriate to organizational information security needs.
• Contrast the ways that different software development methodologies, frameworks, and guidelines contribute to systems security.
• Explain the implementation of security controls for software development ecosystems.

Chapter 7: Security Assessment and Testing

• Choose an appropriate mix of security testing, assessment, controls, and management methods for different systems and applications environments.
• Describe the purpose, process, and objectives of formal and informal security assessment and testing.
• Apply professional and organizational ethics to security assessment and testing.
• Explain internal, external, and third-party assessment and testing.
• Explain management and governance issues related to planning and conducting security assessments.
• Explain the role of assessment in data-driven security decision-making.

Chapter 8: Security Operations

• Show how to efficiently and effectively gather and assess security data.
• Explain the security benefits of effective change management and change control.
• Develop incident response policies and plans.
• Link incident response to needs for security controls and their operational use.
• Relate security controls to improving and achieving required availability of information assets and systems.
• Understand the security and safety ramifications of various facilities, systems, and infrastructure characteristics.

Chapter 9: Putting It All Together

• Explain how governance frameworks and processes relate to the operational use of information security controls.
• Relate the process of conducting forensic investigations to information security operations.
• Relate business continuity and disaster recovery preparedness to information security operations.
• Explain how to use education, training, awareness, and engagement with all members of the organization as a way to strengthen and enforce information security processes.
• Show how to operationalize information systems and IT supply chain risk management.

Individuals in the following roles may benefit from this certification:

• Security Consultants
• Security Managers
• Security Auditors
• Security Architects
• Security Analysts
• Security Directors
• IT Directors/Managers
• Chief Information Security Officers
• Network Architects

Notes

Proficiencies

The Associate of ISC2 designation can be earned by anyone who passes an exam for an ISC2 certification requiring work experience. 

To qualify for CISSP certification, you must pass the exam and have at least five years of cumulative, paid work experience in two or more of the eight domains of the ISC2 CISSP Common Body of Knowledge (CBK).

Learn more about CISSP Experience Requirements.

Applies Towards the Following Program(s)

• Cyber and Cloud Security Professional : Required courses: