I am always learning something new, usually it’s because I’ve picked up a new project like building a gas analyzer for scuba diving (post on this coming soon), other times its natural curiosity. This time my learning was focused on earning a specific certification.

I recently undertook the ISC2 Certified in Cyber Security Certification (CC) exam.

This certification is a relatively new offering from ISC2, having only been launched in August 2022.

Currently, ISC2 is offering both the training and the certification for free.

The Certification

The CC exam covers 5 different domains:

• Security Principles
• Incident Response, Business Continuity (BC) and Disaster Recovery (DR) Concepts
• Access Controls Concepts
• Network Security
• Security Operations

ISC2’s exam outline provides more details of expected knowledge for each of these domains. Their self-paced learning is also separated into separate modules that looks at each of these domains.

The Exam

I was sitting the exam out of Pearson Vue’s professional centre in Tel Aviv.

Despite a brief train delay, I arrived at the Pearson Vue testing center in Tel Aviv with ample time prior to my scheduled exam time.

I provided them my ID, they gave me a locker to keep my belongings in, and I had to submit to a palm vein scan.

ISC2’s website provides further details for exam-day and what you should take, so if you are planning to sit their certifications, have a read here.

ISC2 allows 2 hours for their CC exam. The exam consists of 100 multiple choice questions, 25 of which are pre-test questions ISC2 includes for research purposes.

The exam was relatively straight forward, I completed the exam in 30 minutes and was given a printout with my results indicating I had passed the exam.

To finish the process, I paid $50 for ISC2’s annual membership fee (AMF) at which point i was awarded the certification.

Preparing for the exam

My preparation for the exam was primarily going through the self-paced course ISC2 offers for the certification, which is about 15 hours of content.

I found this to be sufficient to pass the exam but also recognize I have a vast amount of prior Industry knowledge that would have contributed to my success. I also looked at the exam outline and focused my review on the sections that carried the most weighting.

ISC2 questions require you to understand the concepts behind the topics so that you can apply them under different contexts, this means you need to understand the “what” and the “why” in order to identify the correct answer. The questions themselves also merit some attention, there are generally keywords that will help you determine which answer is the most correct.

A process of elimination will narrow down the options in most cases.

I believe if you approach your study and the exam with this mindset you will be successful.

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Certification

ISC2 recently underwent a rebranding from ISC² to ISC2. As a result, I now possess two versions of my certification with minor aesthetic differences. You might be curious: Which version do you think looks better?

Next Steps

Looking ahead, my next certification goal is the ISC2 CISSP. Before that, however, I’m focusing on deepening my expertise in cloud technologies. I’ll be focusing on AWS and Azure certifications as the next steps in my continuous learning journey. With these certifications, I aim to elevate my proficiency and broaden my expertise within network and information security.