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I’ll be honest .. after doing the Offensive-Security Pentesting with Backtrack course, sitting the SANS SEC-560 course lost a bit of its lustre for me. Nothing against the course .. it was awesome .. and I love all the SANS stuff!! The OffSec course though was pretty tough and I had only just completed it a few months before the SANS training, and to be honest, the OffSec course went a lot deeper.

I originally thought I’d give myself a break from doing SANS stuff for a while .. then I woke up yesterday .. and with 30 days left to sit the GPEN exam I booked it! Funnily enough, straight after that I looked at signing up for 2 other SANS courses ahahhahaah.

So now I have the task of getting ready to sit in exam in 15 days after not looking at the books in over 2 months (im so bad). This is very reminicent of my GSEC study (do a search for my post) .. and I managed to nail that ok.

Anyway .. i’m whining about my GPEN when Chris is about to head off and tackle his GSE .. Good luck nerdlinger!!

SANS Brisbane has just kicked off !!

More pics to come during the week

Just a quick reminder that there’s only a couple of days left to register for SANS Sydney and still save $250!!

Enhance your skills by taking advantage of this hands-on training loaded with practical tools and cutting-edge information coveringSecurity Essentials, Network Penetration Testing, and Web App Pen Testing.

Choose from the following 6-day, hands-on, immersion security and pen testing courses:

• SEC401: SANS Security Essentials with evening Bootcamp – Mark Hofman
• SEC501: Advanced Security Essentials – Enterprise Defender – Eric Cole, PhD
• SEC560: Network Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking – Stephen Sims
• SEC542: Web Application Pen Testing In-Depth – Johannes Ullrich, PhD

For more information click on the banner or go to http://www.sans.org/sydney09/

UPDATE – Exam is over and done with. I got 91% so I was really happy. Even though the SANS exams are open book exams, unless you know what you’re talking about and understand it you really aren’t going to do too brilliantly. I indexed the hell out of the 504 books which really helped, but there aren’t really too many questions that say What is XYZ where you can go and look up XYZ directly. The other thing is that the exams go for 4 hours (5 for the GSEC exam) and that in itself can be quite daunting! It really pays to use your 2 practice tests before hand to get into the groove (I did mine on the 2 days before the exam). The practice tests will give you a fair indication of how you will perform in final exam, at the end it gives you a print out of each section and how well you did, it makes it easy to know where to target to gain some extra marks. All in all though, as long as you make sure you do enough work before hand and know what you’re doing you should be fine. Make sure to take it easy during the exam, don’t rush (I have a tendency to do that – I did this exam in less than 2 hours, I did my CISA exam in 90 mins), and read all the questions carefully! My final words about taking this SANS course as well would be that the On Demand bundle was absolutely brilliant! This is the first time i’ve had access to a SANS On Demand course (and only because I was a facilitator at the Canberra 2009 event), and I was really impressed with it. There’s a series of MP3 files that have been recorded during an actual class, and they are shown along the slides used for the actual courses. At the end of each section there’s a mini quiz that you must get 80% on to move on to the next section, this ensures that you really do understand what you just watched before you move on. All in all, I really enjoyed this course, probably more than any of the other ones i’ve done (even non SANS ones) and I really felt like I got some seriously useful hands on knowledge that I can use in my daily job. Hopefully these notes will help anyone looking to do a GIAC GCIH .. or any other similar SANS or GIAC exam. Feel free to email me or post a comment if you need any other information about any of this stuff .. I’m more than happy to help!

So like last year, my lead up to sit my latest SANS exam has been a very last minute decision You can read about my follies last year HERE. Basically last year (for those who can’t be bothered reading my old post) I only had a week to study for the GIAC GSEC certification (SANS SEC401 Security Essentials Course). So I posted a few notes abotu how I was going to try and attack it and hopefully pass it. Well, I passed it and was pretty pleased with my results (you always know you can do better). Well, this year I’m getting ready to sit the GCIH (SANS SEC504) .. and guess what .. I have a week and a half to study!! hahhaha

So my crazy scheme is pretty much the same as last year, except I have an ace up my sleeve this year .. I have 4 full days in a row to study before the exam! I think I’ll be fine on this exam though. A lot of the content is tasks I do all the time in the office (and also a few good things I play around with at home). So let’s have a recap of how I’m going to attack this

1. Create an index of all the books for easy reference during the exam
2. Also mark the sections in the book with page tags (those little sticky notes)
3. Read through all the slides again
4. Sit a practice exam
5. Read through the book again, picking up on parts that I did poorly on
6. Sit a final practice exam (you only get 2)
7. Repeat step 5
8. Sit exam and do well/pass
9. Celebrate
10. Prepare for next certification/course

I won’t lie to you, there’s a lot of work to accomplish in a short amount of time. I really need to knuckle down and get into it (instead of writing a blog post about what I’m going to do). I feel really confident that I will pass this GIAC GCIH and hopefull even hit the magic marker to be a part of the GIAC Advisory Board.

I’ll let all you kids know how I go in a few weeks!

So, as you all know, I passed my ISACA CISA exam (woo yeah me) .. but that doesn’t mean it’s time to rest!

Next up (end of the month) I’m going to sit my GCIH certification (for the SANS SEC504 course) .. and then after that I’m going to have a crack at the Offensive Security – Pentesting with Backtrack certification (possibly with an old SANS chum – Chris).

This is from their website:

“Pentesting with BackTrack” (previously known as Offensive Security 101) is an online course designed for network administrators and security professionals who need to get acquainted with the world of offensive security. This penetration testing course introduces the latest hacking tools and techniques, and includes remote live labs for exercising the material presented to the students.

This course gives a solid understanding of the penetration testing process, and is equally important for those wanting to either defend or attack their network. The course can be taken from your home, as long as you have a modern computer with high speed internet.

“Pentesting with BackTrack” qualifies you for 40 ISC2 CPE Credits. This applies to students who submit their exercise documentation at the end of the course, or pass the certification challenge.

Let’s see how I go .. I could possibly crack and go mad – Here’s hoping!

SANS will be returning to Sydney from November 16th – 21st 2009. They will be running the following four tracks this year

• SEC 401 SANS Security Essentials – Bootcamp Style (Mark Hofman)
• SEC 501 Advanced Security Essentials – Enterprise Defender (Eric Cole, PhD)
• SEC 542 Web App Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking (Johannes Ullrich PhD)
• SEC 560 Network Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking (Stephan Sims)

The event will be held at Shangri-La Sydney (at the Rocks – very nice!), and promises to be another event that should not be missed!

More information can be found at http://www.sans.org/sydney09

I will post more info as it comes to hand

So, things are a bit quiet at the moment. I’m just having a bit of a break before I gear right up for the December CISM exam (click on the image to go to the ISACA website). Not a lot has been happening really.

I will be mentoring a Security Essentials course in Brisbane next Feb for all those people who can’t attend a SANS event. Hopefully everything will go off without a hitch, and I should have all the students pumped up and excited about security .. and ready to sit their GIAC GSEC Exam.

Microsoft TechEd Australia is coming up very soon (a week or so away I think – best check travel and accomodation) down in Sydney. I’m going to go along and do the security track, but like every TechEd, I’m sure i’ll end up ditching some of those lectures for some of the ones that demostrate the cool new stuff they’re working on.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Just thought I should at least put an update on here.