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What helped me pass CAP?

Certified Authorization Professional (CAP) certificate is issued by (ISC)2 corporation to an IT Professional's skill in maintaining and authorizing information systems. The certification guarantees that the candidate is skilled in his field, as failure to implement proper authorization can lead the company's IT systems vulnerable to many DoS attacks. It also certifies that the professional understand the legal obligations under DoD. Hence this certification is one of the utmost important certificate an IT professional must possess.

(ISC)2 recommends the complete understand of security implementation in an IT environment and hence it demands a work experience of minimum two years of security professional in an organisation under the seven domains pointed out by ISC. The CAP certificate exam contains 125 multiple choice questions which are to be solved in 3 hours. The pass score for all (ISC)2 exams are 700 out of 1000. The score in the exam is converted to 1000 by special algorithm followed by (ISC)2. This conversion is done so that all exams will have same level of difficulty.

To appear the examination, candidates are required to submit the NDA agreement, Candidate background information and the examination fee. The exam fee for CAP examination is USD 419. The exam can be undertaken through pearsonvue website.

I, for my CAP certification, first contacted (ISC)2 to get details of exam in my locality. I was asked to contact pearsonvue website for the same. They provided the details and so I registered and signed NDA with them. I had two months to my exam and so I started to plan and prepare my exam. I bought Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CAP CBK, Second Edition textbook to organise my preparation. This text book had the complete syllabus included in it so that I didn't require any other study materials to follow for the exam.

I then approached (ISC)2 for the official training. (ISC)2 informed me that their training seminar can be attended by both in person and online. As I had a short schedule, I opted for the classroom room based training which will be over in a week time. The training seminar was delivered by SME (Subject Matter Expert), who was trained by (ISC)2 itself. The training was up to the point and included he complete coursework. We also had time to try a mock up exam to verify our knowledge.

The main topics that I covered in the course of my exam preparation are:

• Framework of Risk Management: It includes Framework description, its steps involved, identity roles, responsibilities, framework process, SDLC and other legal and security requirements.
• Information system Categorization: It includes various categorization based on types and systems, security plan, boundaries of Security Authorization and registering various systems
• Security controls selection: It involves identifying the controls, documenting the identified controls, selecting the controls, developing a strategy for monitoring the security controls and approving them.
• Implementation of security controls: it involves implementing the security controls and documenting the implementations.
• Assessment of Security controls: It includes the steps for preparing the assessment, developing the plan for assessment, applying the assessment effectively, developing the report on assessment and reviewing the report and making final draft.
• Authorization of Information Systems: It includes how to develop POAM (Plan Of Action and Milestone), determining the risk and the range of acceptability, taking authorization decision and assembling the package for security authorization.
• Security controls monitoring: it involves the impact of changes to security systems, conducting assessments while the system is running, updating the documentaries, performing periodic reporting, and decommissioning and removing the system

Following the text book and the official training made my preparation easier. I didn't have to need to go to any other exam preparations as these two covered the entire syllabus. If you wish to gain certification plan well ahead so that you have enough time to prepare for it. Scheduling the exam well ahead and trying few mock exams can clear many doubts regarding the exam.

Martie Barkon, Developer at Symmetric Solutions