UPDATE: Check out my more recent blog post on how to achieve your CISSP certification
I feel like I have been on a roll with blogs relating to free or very cost effective training options!
Latest in the series is a great FREE course by Kelly Handerhan on Cybrary.it
This course is really meant as an introductory course to CISSP. In it, you will gain about 20-30% of the knowledge you need to pass the CISSP exam. You will need to supplement this course with other training material if you plan attain the CISSP certification…
The official CISSP Study guide is a great option.
The great things about Kelly Handerhan’s Cybrary.it course however are that:
- It’s free!
- It’s a great introduction to Information Security for any IT or even non-IT professionals. I would say only Comptia A+ level knowledge is required
- Kelly does a great job of explaining all the concept with a great selection of stories, examples and real-life scenarios
- It’s also great security revision for seasoned IT professionals!
- By nature of the CISSP certification, it covers ALL areas of Information Technology. That can really help specialists and new IT professionals understand other areas of IT that they may not be familiar with.
Even if you are not an IT Security professional, and work in another area of IT, I would still highly recommend going through this course. It would make you more security aware and do a better job of integrating security in whichever role you play in your IT organization. Knowledge gained from this course would be useful to you regardless of whether you are at the help desk or you are the CIO.
The quality of the course is also on par with paid options.
Of course, Cybrary.it is hoping that you would also become a paid subscriber and partake in additional advanced materials like Virtual Labs, Practice Questions, etc. Those are something worth considering if you are planning to write the CISSP exam and becoming certified. Based on my experience with Kelly Handerhan’s high quality course, I will definitely be subscribing to Cybrary.it for their paid options – that is after I am done going through the official study guide.
As I have mentioned before, it’s always highly beneficial to combine multiple different types of learning material to better grasp and retain the material being learned. Hence I completed the video series by Kelly Handerhan and now I am reading the study guide. After that, I will be going through Cybrary.it’s paid option where they have practice exam questions for CISSP (and tons of other great material).
Enjoy the free course!
Salman Naqvi - 2xCCIE 
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