Introduction

Congratulations on choosing to become a Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP)! In making this choice, you're signing up to join the professionals who strive to keep our information-based modern world safe, secure, and reliable. SSCPs and other information security professionals help businesses and organizations keep private data private and help to ensure that published and public-facing information stays unchanged and unhacked. They help ensure the safe, secure, reliable, and trustworthy operation of our financial, energy, communications, transportation, and many other critical infrastructure systems we all rely upon.

Whether you are new to the fields of information security, information assurance, or cybersecurity, or you've been working with these concepts, tools, and ideas for some time now, this book is here to help you grow your knowledge, skills, and abilities as a systems security professional.

Let's see how!

About This Book

You're here because you want to learn what it takes to be an SSCP. You know this will demand that you build a solid understanding of many different concepts, not only as theories but also as practical tasks you can do to help make information systems more secure. You know you'll need to master a number of key definitions and be able to apply those definitions to real-world situations—you'll need to operationalize those definitions and concepts by turning them into the step-by-step operations that make security become real.

This book is your study guide. It guides you along your personal journey as you learn and master these ideas and technologies. It takes you on that journey concept by concept, starting with simple, fundamental ideas and growing them to the level of power and complexity you will need, on the job, as an SSCP. That is this book's focus, its purpose, and design.

(ISC)2 periodically updates the technical scope—the breadth and depth—of their various certifications to keep them more closely aligned with the needs of the security profession and to better focus them on the current tactics, techniques, and strategies that those professionals are using, day after day. This new edition of the Study Guide has also been updated to reflect and support readers like you as you work to strengthen your own knowledge of information systems security, and the proficiency of your skills with those concepts.

That means this book is also a valuable reference to have with you on the job, or as you continue to learn more about information security, information risk management, or any of a number of other related subject areas. You'll find it more than covers the topic domains that (ISC)2 requires you to demonstrate competency in, should you want to earn your Systems Security Certified Practitioner credential.

Go to https://www.wiley.com/go/sybextestprep to register and gain access to the Sybex interactive online learning environment and test bank with study tools.

What Makes This the “Official” Study Guide for the SSCP?

Good question! This book exists because (ISC)2 wanted a book that would teach as well as guide and explain as well as capture the common knowledge about information assurance—keeping information systems safe and secure by protecting their information assets that all SSCPs should have at their mental fingertips. As creators of the SSCP program, (ISC)2 defines that common body of knowledge, in continuous consultation with system security experts and practitioners from business, industry, government, and academia from around the world.

What Is an SSCP?

The SSCP is actually three things in one: a standard of excellence, a credential that attests to demonstrated excellence, and a person who has earned that credential. Perhaps instead of asking “what” is an SSCP, we should also ask why, who, and how:

• SSCP as standard of excellence. The International Information System Security Certification Consortium, or (ISC)2, created this standard to reflect the continually evolving needs for people who can help all sorts of organizations around the world keep their information systems safe, secure, confidential, private, reliable, and trustworthy. Working with businesses, nonprofits, academic researchers, and the thought leaders of the cybersecurity and information assurance communities of practice, they developed the list of subject areas, or domains, that are the SSCP as a standard. That standard is set as the starting point for your professional journey as an information security specialist. Its focus is on hands-on technical knowledge combined with procedural and administrative awareness. The knowledge, skills, and abilities that make up the SSCP domains become the foundation for other, more advanced certifications (and hence standards).
• SSCP as a credential. Earning an SSCP certification attests to the fact that you have solid working knowledge of the topic domains that are the SSCP. As a published standard of excellence, this certification or credential is portable—people in the information system business, or who know the needs of their own organizations for information security, recognize and respect this credential. People can easily consult (ISC)2's published standards for the SSCP and understand what it means. It is a portable, stackable credential, meaning that it can clearly pave the way for you to take on job responsibilities that need the knowledge and skills it attests to, and demonstrates you have the foundational knowledge to earn other credentials that can build on it.
• SSCP as a goal or objective. The SSCP as a standard answers the needs of hiring managers when they seek the right kind of people to help protect their organization's information, their information systems and processes, their IT infrastructure, and their ability to make informed decisions in reliable, timely ways. Training managers or functional department leaders in various organizations can design their own internal training and skills development programs around the SSCP, knowing that it is a reliable standard for information system security knowledge and experience. They can look at job descriptions or task designs and use the SSCP as a standard to identify whether the job and the SSCP are a good fit with each other or if other significant knowledge and skills will be needed by people filling that position.
• SSCP as a person. By choosing to earn an SSCP credential, you're declaring to yourself and to others that you're willing to hold yourself to a respected and recognized standard of excellence. You're willing to master what that standard asks of you, not only on the technical, physical, and administrative aspects of information security and assurance, but also on its legal and ethical requirements.

The Systems Security Certified Practitioner is thus a person who does the job of systems security to a level of competency that meets or exceeds that standard and who has earned a credential as testament to their knowledge and skills. It is a foundational certification, based on the knowledge and skills that people should already have when they first start out as an information security professional.

Let's operationalize that set of words by showing them in action:

• Systems—Generally, a system is a collection or set of elements that interconnect and interact with each other to fulfill or achieve a larger purpose or objective. In this context, we mean information systems. Information systems are the collected sets of hardware, software, databases, and data sets; the communications, networking, and other technologies that connect all of those elements together into a cohesive, working whole; and the people who use them and depend on them to achieve their goals and objectives.
• Security—Again, generally speaking, security is the set of plans, procedures, and actions that keep something safe from harm, damage, or loss, through accident, acts of nature, or deliberate actions taken by people. Applying that to information systems, we see that information systems security is everything we need to do during design, implementation, operational use, and maintenance to keep all aspects of an information system protected against accidental or deliberate damage; it includes keeping its information free from unauthorized changes or viewing; and it keeps those systems up and running so that the information is there when people need it to get their jobs done.
• Certified—The person holding this credential (or certification) has earned the right to do so by means of having demonstrated their mastery of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are defined to be the subject area or domain of the certification. Specifically, an SSCP has passed the certification exam and demonstrated the required work experience in the field of information security, as specified by the SSCP subject area domains.
• Practitioner—A person whose professional or workplace duties, responsibilities, and tasks has them using the knowledge, skills, and abilities required by the standard to have earned the certification. There's a degree of practice in the definition of practitioner, of course; as a practitioner, you are continually doing the stuff of your profession, and in doing so you continue to learn it better as well as refine, polish, and...