Use this quick start guide to collect all the information about ISC2 SSCP (SSCP) Certification exam. This study guide provides a list of objectives and resources that will help you prepare for items on the SSCP ISC2 Systems Security Certified Practitioner exam. The Sample Questions will help you identify the type and difficulty level of the questions and the Practice Exams will make you familiar with the format and environment of an exam. You should refer this guide carefully before attempting your actual ISC2 Systems Security Certified Practitioner certification exam.
The ISC2 SSCP certification is mainly targeted to those candidates who want to build their career in Security Administrator domain. The ISC2 Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) exam verifies that the candidate possesses the fundamental knowledge and proven skills in the area of ISC2 Systems Security Certified Practitioner.
ISC2 SSCP Exam Summary:
Exam Name | ISC2 Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) |
Exam Code | SSCP |
Exam Price | $249 (USD) |
Duration | 240 mins |
Number of Questions | 150 |
Passing Score | 700 / 1000 |
Books / Training |
Systems Security Certified Practitioner (Online Boot Camp) Systems Security Certified Practitioner (Online Self-Paced) Systems Security Certified Practitioner (Classroom-Based) |
Schedule Exam | Pearson VUE |
Sample Questions | ISC2 SSCP Sample Questions |
Practice Exam | ISC2 SSCP Certification Practice Exam |
ISC2 SSCP Exam Syllabus Topics:
Topic | Details |
---|---|
Security Operations and Administration - 16% |
|
Comply with codes of ethics |
- (ISC)² Code of Ethics - Organizational code of ethics |
Understand security concepts |
- Confidentiality - Integrity - Availability - Accountability - Privacy - Non-repudiation - Least privilege - Segregation of duties (SoD) |
Identify and implement security controls |
- Technical controls (e.j., session timeout, password aging) - Physical controls (e.g., mantraps, cameras, locks) - Administrative controls (e.g., security policies, standards, procedures, baselines) - Assessing compliance - Periodic audit and review |
Document and maintain functional security controls |
- Deterrent controls - Preventative controls - Detective controls - Corrective controls - Compensating controls |
Participate in asset management lifecycle (hardware, software and data) |
- Process, planning, design and initiation - Development/Acquisition - Inventory and licensing - Implementation/Assessment - Operation/Maintenance - Archiving and retention requirements - Disposal and destruction |
Participate in change management lifecycle |
- Change management (e.g., roles, responsibilities, processes) - Security impact analysis - Configuration management (CM) |
Participate in implementing security awareness and training (e.g., social engineering/phishing) | |
Collaborate with physical security operations (e.g., data center assessment, badging) | |
Access Controls - 15% |
|
Implement and maintain authentication methods |
- Single/Multi-factor authentication (MFA) - Single sign-on (SSO) (e.g., Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), OpenID Connect) - Device authentication - Federated access (e.g., Open Authorization 2 (OAuth2), Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)) |
Support internetwork trust architectures |
- Trust relationships (e.g., 1-way, 2-way, transitive, zero) - Internet, intranet and extranet - Third-party connections |
Participate in the identity management lifecycle |
- Authorization - Proofing - Provisioning/De-provisioning - Maintenance - Entitlement - Identity and access management (IAM) systems |
Understand and apply access controls |
- Mandatory - Discretionary - Role-based (e.g., attribute-, subject-, object-based) - Rule-based |
Risk Identification, Monitoring and Analysis - 15% |
|
Understand the risk management process |
- Risk visibility and reporting (e.g., risk register, sharing threat intelligence/indicators of Compromise (IOC), Common Vulnerability Scoring (CVSS)) - Risk management concepts (e.g., impact assessments, threat modelling) - Risk management frameworks - Risk tolerance (e.g., appetite) - Risk treatment (e.g., accept, transfer, mitigate, avoid) |
Understand legal and regulatory concerns (e.g., jurisdiction, limitations, privacy) | |
Participate in security assessment and vulnerability management activities |
- Security testing - Risk review (e.g., internal, supplier, architecture) - Vulnerability management lifecycle |
Operate and monitor security platforms (e.g., continuous monitoring) |
- Source systems (e.g., applications, security appliances, network devices, and hosts) - Events of interest (e.g., anomalies, intrusions, unauthorized changes, compliance monitoring) - Log management - Event aggregation and correlation |
Analyze monitoring results |
- Security baselines and anomalies - Visualizations, metrics, and trends (e.g., notifications, dashboards, timelines) - Event data analysis - Document and communicate findings (e.g., escalation) |
Incident Response and Recovery - 14% |
|
Support incident lifecycle e.g., National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), International Organization for Standardization (ISO) |
- Preparation - Detection, analysis and escalation - Containment - Eradication - Recovery - Lessons learned/implementation of new countermeasure |
Understand and support forensic investigations |
- Legal (e.g., civil, criminal, administrative) and ethical principles - Evidence handling (e.g., first responder, triage, chain of custody, preservation of scene) - Reporting of analysis |
Understand and support Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) |
- Emergency response plans and procedures (e.g., information system contingency, pandemic, natural disaster, crisis management) - Interim or alternate processing strategies - Restoration planning - Backup and redundancy implementation - Testing and drills |
Cryptography - 9% |
|
Understand cryptography |
- Confidentiality - Integrity and authenticity - Data sensitivity (e.g., personally identifiable information (PII), intellectual property (IP), protected health information (PHI)) - Regulatory and industry best practice (e.g., Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS), International Organization for Standardization (ISO)) |
Apply cryptography concepts |
- Hashing - Salting - Symmetric/Asymmetric encryption/Elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) - Non-repudiation (e.g., digital signatures/certificates, Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC), audit trails) - Strength of encryption algorithms and keys (e.g., Advanced Encryption Standards (AES), Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA), 256-, 512-, 1024-, 2048-bit keys) - Cryptographic attacks, cryptanalysis, and countermeasures (e.g., quantum computing) |
Understand and implement secure protocols |
- Services and protocols - Common use cases - Limitations and vulnerabilities |
Understand Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) |
- Fundamental key management concepts (e.g., storage, rotation, composition, generation, destruction, exchange, revocation, escrow) - Web of Trust (WOT) |
Network and Communications Security - 16% |
|
Understand and apply fundamental concepts of networking |
- Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) and Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) models - Network topologies - Network relationships (e.g., peer-to-peer (P2P), client server) - Transmission media types (e.g., wired, wireless) - Software-defined networking (SDN) (e.g., Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN), network virtualization, automation) - Commonly used ports and protocols |
Understand network attacks (e.g., distributed denial of service (DDoS), man-in-the-middle (MITM), Domain Name System (DNS) poisoning) and countermeasures (e.g., content delivery networks (CDN)) | |
Manage network access controls |
- Network access controls, standards and protocols (e.g., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.1X, Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS), Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System Plus (TACACS+)) - Remote access operation and configuration (e.g., thin client, virtual private network (VPN)) |
Manage network security |
- Logical and physical placement of network devices (e.g., inline, passive, virtual) - Segmentation (e.g., physical/logical, data/control plane, virtual local area network (VLAN), access control list (ACL), firewall zones, micro-segmentation) - Secure device management |
Operate and configure network-based security devices |
- Firewalls and proxies (e.g., filtering methods, web application firewalls (WAF)) Intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) - Network intrusion detection/prevention systems - Routers and switches - Traffic-shaping devices (e.g., wide area network (WAN) optimization, load balancing) |
Secure wireless communications |
- Technologies (e.g., cellular network, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Near-Field Communication (NFC)) - Authentication and encryption protocols (e.g., Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP), Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)) - Internet of Things (IoT) |
Systems and Application Security - 15% |
|
Identify and analyze malicious code and activity |
- Malware (e.g., rootkits, spyware, scareware, ransomware, trojans, virus, worms, trapdoors, backdoors, fileless) - Malware countermeasures (e.g., scanners, anti-malware, code signing) - Malicious activity (e.g., insider threat, data theft, distributed denial of service (DDoS), botnet, zero-day exploits, web-based attacks, advanced persistent threat (APT)) - Malicious activity countermeasures (e.g., user awareness, system hardening, patching, sandboxing, isolation, data loss prevention (DLP)) |
Implement and operate endpoint device security |
- Host-based intrusion prevention system (HIPS) - Host-based firewalls - Application white listing - Endpoint encryption (e.g., whole disk encryption) - Trusted Platform Module (TPM) - Secure browsing - Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) |
Administer Mobile Device Management (MDM) |
- Provisioning techniques (e.g., corporate owned, personally enabled (COPE), Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)) - Containerization - Encryption - Mobile application management (MAM) |
Understand and configure cloud security |
- Deployment models (e.g., public, private, hybrid, community) - Service models (e.g., Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Software as a Service (SaaS)) - Virtualization (e.g., hypervisor) - Legal and regulatory concerns (e.g., privacy, surveillance, data ownership, jurisdiction, eDiscovery) - Data storage, processing, and transmission (e.g., archiving, recovery, resilience) - Third-party/outsourcing requirements (e.g., service-level agreement (SLA), data portability, data destruction, auditing) - Shared responsibility model |
Operate and maintain secure virtual environments |
- Hypervisor - Virtual appliances - Containers - Continuity and resilience - Attacks and countermeasures - Shared storage |
To ensure success in ISC2 Systems Security Certified Practitioner certification exam, we recommend authorized training course, practice test and hands-on experience to prepare for ISC2 Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) exam.