Archive for the ‘security’ Category

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CISSP-ISSMP…. still WIP

Sunday, May 15th, 2022

I’ve been working at this for a while…. I got a paid self-study course which I finished but access to the learning material expired already. At least I can still access the flash cards.

The official CBK book has terrible reviews on Amazon. I wonder what that leaves me with. I’m tempted to pay for some online ISSMP questions.

Since there is a big overlap of material with the ISACA CISM and ISACA CRISC, I actually should be able to nail this anyway (see my other posts)

Update 20220519:

I ordered the official CBK book. Several people pointed out how they were using that book to study for the exam and it’s a much cheaper alternative to re-purchase the CISSP-ISSMP online self-study course. So I guess it can’t hard. Plus I like physical books.

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CRISC – passed the exam

Sunday, May 15th, 2022

This took a long time. I was hesitant to book the exam because I never felt quite ready.

During the exam, I felt I was in terrible physical shape but I scraped through.

Getting certified is a different matter though…. I looked at the requirements and apart from doing some risk assessments and explaining risk assessments, I cannot really claim a lot. We’ll see….

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CISA me

Sunday, May 15th, 2022

Same with the CISM, I finally get certified. Thank to my current position, I was able to gather enough work experience to get certified. Yay. And I finally got the paper version of the certificate as well.

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CISM me

Monday, February 21st, 2022

CISM done

After passing the ISACA CISM exam in January 2020 (more than 2 years ago :o), I was finally certified this month.

In other news, I’m also gathering the required work experience for CISA certification.

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PCI Professional

Sunday, April 25th, 2021

Another one I was able to bag…. not the most difficult exam I’ve ever taken but there were some tricky questions. This is valid for 3 years and allows me to call myself (surprise, surprise) “PCI Professional). Nice addition.

I took some guts from my side to sign up for this… I felt under-prepared most of the time but John Elliott’s PCI courses on pluralsight were an invaluable help.

And I passed on the first try. Yay me.

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CISM test passed

Thursday, January 16th, 2020

Yes, I did it again. New year, new test, same result (apart from the unfortunate CKAD exam but it’s not quite over there yet because I have a free re-take)

Apparently I will receive an email confirmation with the definite result in about 10 days but I don’t think they will change the result *fingerscrossedthough*

The hurdle work experience in order to get actually certified is a different story though….

Anyway, next up are take 2 on the CKAD exam followed by CISA….

Update:
In case you are wondering: I used to CISM All-in-one guide by Peter H. Gregory and an app called ISACA CISM by pocket prep to crunch practice questions.

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CISM exam soon…

Saturday, December 14th, 2019

Soon after getting certified as CISSP, I started stuying for the CISM exam. I’m done with the textbook (All-In-One CISM by Peter H. Gregory, 2018 – which I can recommend) and I am making good progress on the pracice questions on Kaplan (former Transcender),

The original plan was to take the exam around February but maybe I can speed things up and take the exam in January already.

Still on my list…. CKAD (needs review) and CISA (book ordered).

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IT Security for home users – keep your applications up to date

Friday, March 1st, 2019

Windows

ninite

My personal suggestion is ninite, to be found at https://ninite.com/

Select the applications you want to use, download the installer and run it only a daily basis – it will keep you up to date and safe(r)

MacOS

AppStore

Love it or hate it, but minor applications can easily be installed via the AppStore e.g. Line or Slack

Advantage: You will get an update notification from the AppStore if an update is available

Brew

Follow the instructions on the brew HP: https://brew.sh/

Once this is done, you can install, update or uninstall applications from the command line

Installs

brew install wget

brew cask install macvim

brew cask install gimp

brew cask install libreoffice

brew cask install quodlibet

brew cask install virtualbox

brew cask install chromium

brew cask install projectlibre

brew cask install vlc

brew cask install skype

brew cask install minikube

brew cask install firefox

brew cask install keepassx

brew cask install box-sync

Uninstall

brew cask uninstall <cask_name>

Upgrade

brew update && brew outdated && brew upgrade && brew cleanup

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IT Security for home users – upgrade your OS

Thursday, February 28th, 2019

The mainstream operation systems (including mobile OSes) have an upgrade function (in case of a mobile OS, whether your carrier releases updates is a different story….)

Use that function and install those updates!

macOS: Go to the Apple icon, select “About This Mac” and click on “Software Update…” Most of the updates require a reboot, even on MacOS.

Windows: From the “Windows Settings”, go to “Update & Security”. Check for updates, install what’s available and reboot.

Ubuntu: Run ‘sudo apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade’
(if you feel like protesting because <your valid reason here>, then you already know what you’re doing and you shouldn’t be reading this anyway (unless you want to fact-check my ramblings))
Other Linux versions use different commands, if you’re unsure, google for the appropriate command on your platform.

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IT security for home users – a simple guide (overview)

Tuesday, February 26th, 2019

I have been thinking about writing about this for a while… there is much information on staying secure out there and everything, I repeat, everything can already be read and practiced, even as a home user.

But maybe it bears repeating… so why not summarize some good practices here and maybe add my two cents.

Trying to stay secure as a home user usually comes down to just a couple of things:

  1. Upgrade your OS
  2. Disable what you don’t need
  3. Upgrade your application
  4. Change default passwords
  5. Upgrade anything else

Did I mention “upgrade <your stuff here>” already? You should do that.

If you fear breaking stuff by upgrading, then don’t upgrade *right away* – in IT, we say “avoid x.0 releases”. This applies to both OS and applications.
Wait for a x.1 or better x.2 release and install that one. Many vendors work hard to release good products but just as many release under time pressure and cut corners to make it in time, to save costs etc. It happens.

Keep coming back to read the details.

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