Customer Reviews

The CISM Prep Guide: Mastering the Five Domains of Information Security Management

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I just finished my CISM exam and I hope that I can save someone else the same agony I went through. The material in this book is 100% USELESS!!!! (I'm screaming from a mountain top with no exaggeration). If you find this book lying on the sidewalk, DON'T even pick it up. I spent about 20 hours studying the material in this book and taking the pre-tests and not one bit of that effort prepared me for the exam, and I'm being nice!!! USE THE MATERIAL FROM ISACA, not this garbage! It's as if the authors have never even heard of CISM, maybe there is another CISM exam that I am not aware of?!?!?!

Signed,
Unfortunate purchaser

Please do not, under any circumstances spend money on this book. There is actually no real good study material in general for the CISM exam. This book has not been revised since 2003.

This is a horrible book for this exam. DO NOT BUY IT. Plain enough?

Be advised: this book may have been relevant a couple years ago, but not anymore. ISACA has updated and slightly reorganized the exam. I believe this book actually interferred with my prep. The ISACA study guides and applicable experience are plenty to pass this exam (worked for me). Good luck.

This book was literally a cut and paste of the author's previous work. I just took the CISM exam, and if I had assumed this book could help me pass the test, I would have failed. This is NOT the CISSP, and the fact that they could not take the time to remove references to "studying for the CISSP", in this book tells me it was glued together, and that is being VERY kind.

DO NOT WASTE A DIME ON THIS BOOK!!!

Co-author here. It has been brought to Dr. Krutz' and my attention that several errors in the CD questions were not corrected per our instructions prior to publication. Wiley has published a link to the CISM Prep Guide question errata sheet @:

http://www.wiley.com/legacy/compbooks/updates/cismprepgd/index.html

The errata sheet in pdf format can be also found @: www.rdvgroup.com/CISM

As to the reader's response that someone in Wiley stated that we weren't the authors of the questions, Dr. Krutz and I were unable to find who told him (at least no one admitted it). Other than the errors which should have been corrected by the publisher, we are solely responsible for the quality of the questions.

Russell Dean Vines

I'll just echo what others have said before me: in 2008 this book is so outdated that it's no longer useful for the CISM exam. Spend your money on the ISACA guides instead.

The product details are the first giveaway - 456 Pages?
My book finishes at page 433. Anything of substance in the book
finishes where appendix A starts at Page 259. In other words there is a lot less to the book than the stated 456 pages. The CISM is considered to be a rival to the CISSP by some, and Krutz & Vines made a decent job with the CISSP Prep Guide (Gold edition). What happened here ?
The Boson questions are woeful with numerous mistakes. I gave feedback to the publishers and was informed that "The publisher and author have acknowledged that this is an error created by the question writer hired to write the questions for the CD test" Were Mr Krutz and Vines too busy to even QA the questions, let alone write them?

I sat through the first of a few local ISACA CISM review sessions for the Dec 2006 exam today. I brought this book along for class (and CISM certified instructors) to see since the sample exam questions within are quite a different focus than those found in the ISACA's 3 prep books. Today's review session had notes provided directly from the CISM sponsoring organization. The ISACA's sample questions provided today didn't delve into the technical level found in this book's sample exam questions. I agree with a previous reviewer, this book seems to have more of a CISSP focus than a CISM focus at this time. I will focus my prep efforts for the Dec 2006 exam on the 3 books from ISACA (Exam guide, Q&A & Explanations, & Q&A and Explanations Supplement.) However, I will keep this book as an additional resource for my next year's prep for the CISSP exam. From what I see, while not set up by the CISSP domains, the technical detail level in this book is better suited for the CISSP exam prep. At the time/date of this posting, the Peltier/Peltier CISM prep book hasn't been released.

It must be difficult to write an exam review book before the exam is actually offered. I purchased this book for additional reference before taking the CISM Exam over the past weekend; 6/03. This was the first time the exam has been offered to the public. I estimate that 80% of the exam questions where not covered in this book. While the material presented by the author's is valid, it did not help much in terms of the exam. This book is much more useful for someone trying to obtain the CISSP not CISM.

It must be difficult to write an exam review book before the exam is actually offered. I purchased this book for additional reference before taking the CISM Exam over the past weekend; 6/03. This was the first time the exam has been offered to the public. I estimate that 80% of the exam questions where not covered in this book. While the material presented by the author's is valid, it did not help much in terms of the exam. This book is much more useful for someone trying to obtain the CISSP not CISM.