CISSP — Certified Information Systems Security Professional

CISSP is a vendor-neutral, management-leaning certification for senior practitioners with at least 5 years of paid full-time work across two or more of the 8 CBK domains. It is the de-facto credential for security architect, security manager, and CISO roles, especially in regulated industries (finance, healthcare, defence). The exam tests breadth over depth — you are expected to think like a manager who understands the underlying technical controls, not like a hands-on engineer debugging a firewall rule. ## What the exam covers - Security and Risk Management - Asset Security - Security Architecture and Engineering - Communication and Network Security - Identity and Access Management (IAM) - Security Assessment and Testing - Security Operations - Software Development Security ## Prerequisites - 5 years paid full-time experience across 2+ CBK domains - Or Associate of ISC2 path while accumulating experience ## Study plan Plan 3–6 months. Sybex Official Study Guide + Official Practice Tests for breadth; Destination CISSP MindMaps for recall; Pete Zerger's 50-question YouTube series for exam pacing. Drill 100 questions/day in the last 4 weeks; never sit the real exam below 80% sustained on Boson or QE. ## Cost (UK 2026) Exam fee approx. £600 (vendor list price; bundles + corporate discounts vary). ## Format 125–175 adaptive items (CAT), 4 hours, scaled score 700/1000 to pass