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ISC2 SSCP Exam Overview :

Exam Name: Systems Security Certified Practitioner
Exam Code: SSCP
Certifications: ISC2 SSCP Certification
Actual Exam Duration: 150 minutes
Expected no. of Questions in Actual Exam: 125
See Expected Questions: ISC2 SSCP Expected Questions in Actual Exam

ISC2 SSCP Exam Objectives :

Section Weight Objectives
Domain 1: Security Operations and Administration 16%     1.1 Comply with codes of ethics
  •         (ISC)² Code of Ethics
  •         Organizational code of ethics        
    1.2 Understand security concepts
  •         Confidentiality
  •         Integrity
  •         Availability
  •         Accountability
  •         Privacy
  •         Non-repudiation
  •         Least privilege
  •         Segregation of duties (SoD)        
    1.3 Identify and implement security controls
  •         Technical controls (e.g., 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        
    1.4 Document and maintain functional security controls
  •         Deterrent controls
  •         Preventative controls
  •         Detective controls
  •         Corrective controls
  •         Compensating controls        
    1.5 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        
    1.6 Participate in change management lifecycle
  •         Change management (e.g., roles, responsibilities, processes)
  •         Security impact analysis
  •         Configuration management (CM)        
    1.7 Participate in implementing security awareness and training (e.g., social engineering/phishing)
    
    1.8 Collaborate with physical security operations (e.g., data center assessment, badging)
Domain 2: Access Controls 15%      2.1 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))        
    2.2 Support internetwork trust architectures
  •         Trust relationships (e.g., 1-way, 2-way, transitive, zero)
  •         Internet, intranet and extranet
  •         Third-party connections        
    2.3 Participate in the identity management lifecycle
  •         Authorization
  •         Proofing
  •         Provisioning/De-provisioning
  •         Maintenance
  •         Entitlement
  •         Identity and access management (IAM) systems        
    2.4 Understand and apply access controls
  •         Mandatory
  •         Discretionary
  •         Role-based (e.g., attribute-, subject-, object-based)
  •         Rule-based
Domain 3: Risk Identification, Monitoring and Analysis 15% 3.1 Understand the risk management process
  •     Risk visibility and reporting (e.g., risk register, sharing threat intelligence/Indicators of Compromise (IOC), Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS))
  •     Risk management concepts (e.g., impact assessments, threat modelling)
  •     Risk management frameworks (e.g., International Organization for Standardization (ISO), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST))
  •     Risk tolerance (e.g., appetite)
  •     Risk treatment (e.g., accept, transfer, mitigate, avoid, ignore)    
3.2 Understand legal and regulatory concerns (e.g., jurisdiction, limitations, privacy)

3.3 Participate in security assessment and vulnerability management activities
  •     Security testing
  •     Risk review (e.g., internal, supplier, architecture)
  •     Vulnerability management lifecycle    
3.4 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    
3.5 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)
Domain 4: Incident Response and Recovery 14% 4.1 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    
4.2 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    
4.3 Understand and support business continuity plan (BCP) and disaster recovery plan (DRP) activities
  •     Emergency response plans and procedures (e.g., information systems contingency, pandemic, natural disaster, crisis management)
  •     Interim or alternate processing strategies
  •     Restoration planning
  •     Backup and redundancy implementation
  •     Testing and drills
Domain 5: Cryptography 9% 5.1 Understand reasons and requirements for 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))
5.2 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)    
5.3 Understand and implement secure protocols
  •     Services and protocols (e.g., Internet Protocol Security (IPsec), Transport Layer Security(TLS), Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM))
  •     Common use cases
  •     Limitations and vulnerabilities    
5.4 Understand and support public key infrastructure (PKI) systems
  •     Fundamental key management concepts (e.g., storage, rotation, composition, generation, destruction, exchange, revocation, escrow)
  •     Web of Trust (WOT) (e.g., Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), GNU Privacy Guard (GPG), blockchain)
Domain 6: Network and Communications Security 16% 6.1 Understand and apply fundamental concepts of networking
  •     Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) and Transmis-sion 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., Soft-ware-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN), network virtualization, automation)
  •     Commonly used ports and protocols    
6.2 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))

6.3 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))
6.4 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    
6.5 Operate and configure network-based security devices
  •     Firewalls and proxies (e.g., filtering methods, web application firewall (WAF))
  •     Intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS)
  •     Routers and switches
  •     Traffic-shaping devices (e.g., wide area network (WAN) optimization, load balancing)    
6.6 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)
Domain 7: Systems and Application Security 15% 7.1 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, isolation, data loss prevention (DLP))
  •     Social engineering (e.g., phishing, impersonation)
  •     Behavior analytics (e.g., machine learning, Artificial Intelligence (AI), data analytics)    
7.2 Implement and operate endpoint device security
  •     Host-based intrusion prevention system (HIPS)
  •     Host-based firewalls
  •     Application whitelisting
  •     Endpoint encryption (e.g., whole disk encryption)
  •     Trusted Platform Module (TPM)»Secure browsing
  •     Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)    
7.3 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)    
7.4 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, sur-veillance, data ownership, jurisdiction, eDiscovery)
  •     Data storage, processing, and transmission (e.g., archiving, recovery, resilience)
  •     Third-party/outsourcing requirements (e.g., ser-vice-level agreement (SLA), data portability, data destruction, auditing)
  •     Shared responsibility model
7.5 Operate and maintain secure virtual environments
  •     Hypervisor
  •     Virtual appliances
  •     Containers
  •     Continuity and resilience
  •     Attacks and countermeasures
  •     Shared storage
Official Information https://www.isc2.org/sscp/default.aspx

Updates in the ISC2 SSCP Exam Topics:

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