CCSP: Cisco Certified Security Professional Certification All-in-One Exam Guide (Exams SECUR,CSPFA, CSVPN, CSIDS, and CSI) [Hardcover]

Robert Larson (Author), Lance Cockcroft (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0072226919 | ISBN-13: 978-0072226911 | Publication Date: July 28, 2003 | Edition: 1

All-in-One is all you need! This authoritative reference offers complete coverage of all material on CCSP exams SECUR (Exam 642-501), CSPFA (Exam 642-511), CSVPN (Exam 642-511), CSIDS (Exam 642-531), and CSI (Exam 642-541). You’ll find exam objectives at the beginning of each chapter, helpful exam tips, end-of-chapter practice questions, and photographs and illustrations. The bonus CD-ROM contains a testing engine with questions found only on the CD. Our Web site features additional lab exercises as well as continuing updates based on Cisco’s latest objective releases for these exams. This comprehensive guide not only helps you pass these challenging exams, but will also serve as an invaluable on-the-job reference.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Prepare to pass all five CCSP certification exams

Get complete coverage of all the material included on the Cisco Certified Security Professional Certification (CCSP) exams inside this comprehensive, up-to-date resource. With full treatment of all the exam topics, this definitive, dual-purpose tool contains helpful exam tips, sample questions, and real-world scenarios. Authoritative and detailed, this volume serves as both a complete certification study guide and an indispensable, on-the-job IT security reference.

Includes coverage of all five CCSP exams:

• Securing Cisco IOS Networks
• Cisco Secure PIX Firewall Advanced
• Cisco Secure Intrusion Detection System
• Cisco Secure VPN
• Cisco SAFE Implementation

Included on the CD-ROM

• Simulated exams for each: SECUR, CSPFA, CSVPN, CSIDS & CSI
• Lab exercises for hands-on practice
• Complete electronic book
• Includes 1.5 hours of CSVPN video training

About the Author

Robert E. Larson currently serves as one of 14 members of the Cisco Network Academy Advisory Board, which overseas the Cisco Networking Academy Program, operating in over 8,500 sites worldwide. He has designed computer-training courses, developed training materials, and delivered instructor-led training for 17 years, including having written two network certification books and three CCNA Instructor's Guides. He holds CCNP, CCDP, CCNA, CCDA, CCAI, MCSE and MCP certifications.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1024 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (July 28, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072226919
• ISBN-13: 978-0072226911
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 6.9 x 2.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,662,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fair, considering the competition, April 1, 2004

By 

Benjamin Low (NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: CCSP: Cisco Certified Security Professional Certification All-in-One Exam Guide (Exams SECUR,CSPFA, CSVPN, CSIDS, and CSI) (Hardcover)

I've used four CCSP-related books in preparing for teaching the CCSP subject material, and have found none of them completely up to the task. The All-In-One covers the SECUR and CSPFA material reasonably well, though starts to fall down with CSVPN and is mediocre at best for CSIDS. CSI? Well that gets all of four pages of bullet points reprinted from the official Cisco exam content and the recommendation to go and read the free Cisco SAFE whitepapers.

As with all CCSP books, much of the text is borrowed (some might say plagiarised, given no referencing is used) from the official Cisco documentation. Picking a page pretty much at random: p 466 discusses Split Tunnelling for the VPN 3000 Concentrator; the text here is a lightly edited copy from the (free) Cisco VPN 3000 Config Guide, rel 4.1, p 271 (13.35).

This book has many factual and editorial errors (e.g. picking random examples from my annotations: figures in Chapter 24 are all off-by-one, IP addresses given in screen grabs in Chapter 15 are incorrect; the description of HMAC on p. 292 confuses the shared key with a private key) to the point that causes the reader to question the validity of the material (perhaps this is intentional to force students to check everything!). Even some of the copied Cisco documentation has errors introduced: e.g. the diagrams of the IDS architecture in Chapter 24 are incorrect when compared to the original Cisco documentation, and the text. Pretty much all of Chapter 25 (CSIDS) is out of date and no longer relevant to the current (2004) exams. As of March 2004, the publisher's web site has not released any errata.

The material covering the SECUR and CSPFA exams is about 80-90% of what you'll need to review to prepare for those exams; for the remaining 10-20% and for the other exams you WILL need to refer to other references (i.e. the Cisco documentation). For CSIDS and CSI, this book will be of very little help.

Having said all of the above, I can vouch for this book being about the best of a bad bunch. None of the competing books seem to be any better!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a good book for Exam Guide, maybe reference, May 18, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: CCSP: Cisco Certified Security Professional Certification All-in-One Exam Guide (Exams SECUR,CSPFA, CSVPN, CSIDS, and CSI) (Hardcover)

This book, while obviously having loads of information, is not as helpful as its price should indicate. I found many small typos throughout the book, and there are numerous times that I found actually incorrect information. After studying this book very heavily, I found that it only mentioned about two-thirds of what I actually found on the test (CSPFA 642-521). When I took the test, I was completely surprised by much of the information. The packaged test in the book is really just a test on the book itself, and does not represent the actual test very well (CSPFA 642-521). This book does have a lot of information, and can be used as a study guide, but I would absolutely recommend buying another book to supplement it, or taking a course.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best book, September 4, 2003

By 

Joe W Dale (Tacoma, WA. United States CCNA, NET+) - See all my reviews

This review is from: CCSP: Cisco Certified Security Professional Certification All-in-One Exam Guide (Exams SECUR,CSPFA, CSVPN, CSIDS, and CSI) (Hardcover)

The CCSP all in one is The best books I have read by far covering all the important objectives covering Cisco Security. The book covers 3.6 auto-initiation very clear and I was able to pass the CSVPN easily. The book takes a no-nonsense approach and I will find myself using it as an excellent reference now and in the future. Well written and easy to understand if you are preparing for the CCSP, you need to include this as a must.