I decided in March to give the CISSP exam in April/May. As with most people I did not want to spend 3-6 months preparing for an exam I needed something short and concise.

CISSP for Dummies despite the name fits the bill perfectly. Even though this book is based on the older CBK 10 domain structure it contains almost all the content of the new 8 domain structure. It gives the reader all the information required to pass the exam in a very unique way while keeping you engaged. It isn’t dry and verbose like the official ISC2 CBK or even Shon Harris’s AIO. Both books are almost 1500 pages. This one however is less than 500!

You can finish the book cover to cover in under 6 weeks by spending less than an hour a day on weekdays and maybe 3-4 hours on weekends. I also recommend rereading the Cryptography domain twice. I actually prefer the older domain structure as the new one it’s all spread out. You will find around 2-3 out of the 8 domains talking about Cryptography which doesn’t make sense to me!

As with most books in the “for Dummies” series this one also has icons which point out important stuff to remember or cross reference. Check out the image.

The book is almost extremely affordable and available at Amazon for under 24$.

As for the cons! Be warned the quizzes in this book are terrible. Way too easy and don’t really reflect what you will see in the exam. Look elsewhere.
You may also need to refer some other material for some topics. YouTube has some very good videos to explain cryptography for example.