Review of CISSP Certification All-in-One Exam Guide, Fourth Edition (Hardcover)

I have exchanged email with the author and we have had a few phone calls, but I cannot say that I know Shon Harris well. However, after reading the 4th edition of her very successful book, I feel I know her better. I love the humor in the italics at the beginning of sections and- warning - sometimes in line with the technical material. I appreciate the plain, clear, as simple as possible, way the information is presented. It would be easy to make these concepts sound hard, Shon does not do that, not ever; thank you! The charts and graphics on the main do a fantastic job of making the information clear. She does an extraordinary job of moving between well written prose and bullet points in a style reminiscent of Dorothy Denning. At three inches thick and running over 1100 pages, one certainly cannot fault her for leaving critical information out.This is on par with the Matt Bishop book of being the Information Security Tome. I can't say that I learned that much reading the book since I do security all day, every day and have done so for years, but I never got bored and I went cover to cover ( not counting the detailed index in the back and the "so you want to be a CISSP in the front) and I was astounded by the author's craft, she tells the story of security as well as anyone ever has.

You do not need me to vouchsafe the value of this book ( and the CD) to prepare for the CISSP exam. If Shon is not the best known author, she is certainly in the top two or three in this category. But, I believe this book has another equally important role. It is perfect for the CxO that wants to understand what security is, what they need to know about it. I understand the knee jerk response to that is, "you cannot ask a CEO to read 1100 pages". Actually, the successful senior executives in the world are generally quite good at reading a LOT of information in a SHORT period of time. Shon is accurate, the writing is excellent, the diagrams help with "knowledge compression", a CFO interested in security can zip through this like a zero turn mower on a two acre MacMansion.

Nitpicks, sigh, I wish ISC2 had settled on the standard approach to incident handling instead of creating their own broken one. The Quantum Cryptography section is actually Quantum Key Exchange, but hey! That is a nitpick, no reader of this book actually needs to know the difference. And critics will be overjoyed because Shon seems to have threat, risk, and vulnerability in the right pidgeon holes. The most serious flaw in the book is in chapter 12, Hack and Attack Methods, some of that stuff I know cold and I got a bit confused reading that section, but it is the end of the book and my guess is that folks were getting tired. A few network traces would go a long way towards bringing that section to life. And you know what? The book remains 5 stars. Even if that section was spot on, even if the thirty weak pages out of the 1070 strong pages were perfect, the book is not designed to prepare the reader to be an IPS analyst. The overall message is clear and compelling, the bad guys do evil things with packets; I get the message so will the reader, let's move on.

The bottom line, if you think you know security and want to test your knowledge, buy the book, fire up the CD, install the test software and give yourself a run. Shon is a great author, but she has also compiled an awesome set of questions. Yes, they will prepare you for the CISSP exam, but they will also help you test your knowledge of security and your ability to think critically.If you have further questions about the book, or you disagree with my review, drop me a line and let's talk about it, stephen@sans.edu.



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