Shon Harris, CISSP, is the founder and CEO of Logical Security
LLC, an information security consultant, a former engineer in the Air
Force’s Information Warfare unit, an instructor, and an author. She has
authored several international bestselling books on information
security published by McGraw-Hill Education and Pearson which have sold
over a million copies and have been translated into six languages. Ms.
Harris authors academic textbooks, security articles for publication,
and is a technical editor for
Information Security Magazine. Ms.
Harris has consulted for a large number of organizations in every
business sector (financial, medical, retail, entertainment, utility) and
several U.S. government agencies over the last 18 years. Ms. Harris
provides high-end, advanced, and specialized consulting for
organizations globally. She also works directly with law firms as a
technical and expert witness on cases that range from patent
infringement, criminal investigations, civil lawsuits and she
specializes in cryptographic technologies. Ms. Harris has taught
information security to a wide range of clients over the last 18 years,
some of which have included; West Point, Microsoft, DHS, DoD, DoE, NSA,
FBI, NASA, CDC, PWC, DISA, RSA, Visa, Intel, Cisco, Oracle, HP, Boeing,
Northrop Grumman, Shell, Verizon, Citi, BoA, HSBC, Morgan Stanley,
Symantec, Warner Brothers, Bridgestone, American Express, etc. Ms.
Harris was recognized as one of the top 25 women in the Information
Security field by
Information Security Magazine.
If you want to pass the CISSP exam on the first
attempt, then make this book your PRIMARY study guide. If you are not
planning on taking the CISSP exam, but you work in Information Security,
then make this book part of your required reading. It is an invaluable
tool to any security practitioner.
Shon Harris has updated both
the content and the layout of this newest edition. Key terms are
defined in separate attention-grabbing boxes. This is a huge help when
you are stuck on a difficult concept that you want to review, such as
the concepts that make up "The Common Criteria", or the seemingly
infinite terms associated with the Telecommunications and Network
Security Domain. If you are a person who uses a highlighter, or if you
annotate passages on an e-reader, these attention boxes are fantastic
for easily isolating the important details.
The CISSP exam is
peppered with many "scenario-based" questions, and Shon has updated her
end-of-chapter quizzes to include these types of questions. The quizzes
provided on the disc (included with the book) are comprehensive across
each domain. The questions offered on the disc will test your true
knowledge of the subjects. The Practice Exam book is the perfect
companion for the main book, offering detailed explanations of why one
answer is "The Best" choice for a particular question.
The folks
who compose the questions for the CISSP exam tend to lean towards the
"sinister", attempting to trip you up with subtle and sometimes vague
wording. Shon writes her questions in a similar style, making you
really think about the material to derive the best answer rather than
simply memorizing passages from the book. Her questions and the answer
choices will get you into the correct mindset to pass the exam
