SANS SEC560: (Global Information Assurance Certification) GIAC Penetration Tester (GPEN)- Enterprise Penetration Testing Reviews
Please Note — I will follow the GIAC policies and not provide specific details about the course or the exam. This post will be my recommendations based on my experience with the SEC560 course and GPEN exam. Besides, I will share public accessible links.
DISCLAIMER: I cannot and WILL NOT discuss the exam material itself. Please don’t reach out asking about exam specifics, I’m not risking months of work after working hours and on my holidays, to help someone cheat. Don’t cheat yourself out of this.
Long before it begins, the first thing I’m going to say is my recommendation for you to read the following:
- Cyber Security Certifications are USELESS if You Don’t Do These Things…: https://alexislingad.medium.com/cyber-security-certifications-are-useless-if-you-dont-do-these-things-ad131d8c1c62
- Cybersecurity Certifications: To renew or not renew — that is the question: https://medium.com/cloud-security/cybersecurity-certifications-to-renew-or-not-renew-that-is-the-question-d81529f43985
The write-up links, resources and some notes I read and studied are here:
Information about the Course and the Exam:
- Info: https://hackernoon.com/what-is-the-giac-penetration-tester-gpen-certification
- Exam: https://www.giac.org/certifications/penetration-tester-gpen/
- Course: https://www.sans.org/cyber-security-courses/enterprise-penetration-testing/
- https://www.giac.org/knowledge-base/retakes-and-extensions/
- https://www.giac.org/pricing/
- https://www.giac.org/
Videos:
- How to Pass Any SANS / GIAC Certification on Your First Try: https://youtu.be/LBGgLbiQ9lM
- How To Pass a SANS Cyber Security Exam in 5 DAYS (No books…): https://youtu.be/oe8JfGg_1n8
- Rocking the GIAC Exam with Voltaire: https://youtu.be/bHpkTArlXWc
List:
Writeups:
- HOW I PASSED THE GIAC GPEN: https://payl0ad.run/blog/2019/04/08/How_I_Passed_the_GIAC_GPEN.html
- How to Pass the GPEN: https://authorizedentry.medium.com/how-to-pass-the-gpen-4f67fa37eb1c
- Review: GPEN (GIAC Certified Penetration Tester): https://insertidhere.medium.com/review-gpen-giac-certified-penetration-tester-9f6bd3a16e0f
- Prepping and Passing the GPEN Exam: https://web.archive.org/web/20210121134722/https://alphacybersecurity.tech/prepping-and-passing-the-gpen-exam/
- Passing the GPEN certification from our pentester’s perspective: https://thesecurityfactory.be/passing-the-gpen-certification/
- GPEN SEC560 experience (Passed): https://www.reddit.com/r/GIAC/comments/wlxf99/gpen_sec560_experience_passed/
- How to prepare and clear your first GIAC exam?: https://medium.com/@wintersoldiers/how-to-prepare-and-clear-your-first-giac-exam-4695255b8339
- Risk, Failure, Survival: http://montance.blogspot.com/2016/10/what-not-to-do-when-taking-giac-exam.html?trk=article-ssr-frontend-pulse_little-text-block
- GIAC Exam Prep — Hints & Tips: https://www.khyrenz.com/post/giac-exam-prep-hints-tips
- https://www.quora.com/Where-can-I-get-free-or-cheap-material-for-GIAC-GSEC-exam
- Passing Any GIAC Certification: https://honeycuttjames.wixsite.com/mysite/post/passing-any-giac-certification
- Prepping for a GIAC Exam: https://www.checksomebytes.com/posts/giac-prep/
Index — Repos:
- All Indexes: https://github.com/h4md153v63n/SANS_Indexes
- This application is really helpful when indexing for any GIAC certification exam: https://voltaire.publickey.io
- Index Creator Tools: https://github.com/h4md153v63n/SANS_Indexes/tree/main?tab=readme-ov-file#index-creator-tools
- https://github.com/PalmTreeForest/GIAC-Indexes
- https://github.com/blak3irwin/SEC-560-Index
- https://github.com/ancailliau/sans-indexes
Index:
- https://www.ericooi.com/how-to-build-a-sans-giac-index/
- https://www.ericooi.com/how-to-pass-sans-giac-certification-exams/
- https://br0nw3n.com/2018/10/making-a-giac-exam-index/
- https://www.judithvanstegeren.com/blog/2016/how-I-prepared-for-my-GIAC-GPEN-exam.html
- https://nir-choubey-2011.medium.com/my-2-cents-on-sans-gpen-7c6976aa27ec
- https://tisiphone.net/2015/08/18/giac-testing/
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/kick-up-your-giac-test-prep-notch-don-murdoch-gse-msise-mba
- https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-i-passed-gcfa-my-first-attempt-gabriel-droz
- https://www.reddit.com/r/GIAC/comments/10xg1qg/best_index_method
Pre-Courses:
- https://medium.com/@hamdisevben/comptia-pentest-reviews-af8594abb096
- https://www.udemy.com/course/pentestplus/
- https://www.udemy.com/course/comptia-pentest-exams-002/
Extras:
My memory: https://youtube.com/shorts/no9GS34U4wk
Verify:
- https://www.credly.com/badges/8ef5abd8-ad73-47cf-a8d5-1a03afaca09c
- https://web.archive.org/web/20230912061446/https://www.credly.com/badges/8ef5abd8-ad73-47cf-a8d5-1a03afaca09c
- https://www.giac.org/certified-professional/Hamdi-Sevben/224521
- https://web.archive.org/web/20231218164326/https://www.giac.org/certified-professional/Hamdi-Sevben/224521
- “Die with memories, not dreams!”
- “Flow state”: https://www.betterup.com/blog/flow-state#:~:text=The%20flow%20state%20is%20the,whatever%20you're%20doing%20forever
- The three-or-four-hours rule for getting creative work done: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/fourhours
“There has been a certain dilemma that I have been thinking about and it is the finitude of time during a day and how to organize my limited time to effectively pursue everything that needs to be done. But as I now realize it is impossible to keep up with everything you wish to complete because we also have limited cognitive abilities, which means we have a limitation on the work capacity that we can produce on any kind of creative topic. So this article actually helped me understand this limitation even better and also created a sense of relief that in the end securing 3–4 hours of each day would be more than enough for me to make consistent progress on anything I want.”
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:
Thanks for reading and sharing. See you later, stay health and have a nice day.
You can find me on:
LinkedIn: bit.ly/34BKvtC
Github: bit.ly/3JNmXkK
linktr.ee: bit.ly/3DZiDN1
