SSCP Certification Practise Exam

Who it is for

• Operational IT and security practitioners preparing for the ISC2 SSCP Certification.
• Practitioners who need practice with the seven SSCP domains spanning concepts, access, risk, incident recovery, cryptography, networks, and systems.

What this exam covers

• Security Concepts and Practices — 16%
• Access Controls — 15%
• Risk Identification, Monitoring and Analysis — 15%
• Incident Response and Recovery — 14%
• Cryptography — 9%
• Network and Communications Security — 16%
• Systems and Application Security — 15%

What you will practice

• Apply ISC2 ethics, CIA and related concepts, select security controls, and support asset and change management.
• Implement authentication including MFA and SSO, manage the identity lifecycle, and administer access control models.
• Identify and treat risk, run vulnerability management, and operate SIEM monitoring and analysis.
• Support the incident response lifecycle, forensic evidence handling, and BCP and DRP including RTO and RPO.
• Apply hashing and encryption including AES and RSA, secure protocols, and PKI key management.
• Apply OSI and TCP/IP concepts, counter network attacks, configure segmentation and appliances, and secure wireless and IoT.
• Detect malware and malicious activity, operate endpoint and mobile security, and configure cloud and virtual environment controls.

About this practice exam

The ISC2 SSCP Certification exam tests proven technical skills and practical, hands-on security knowledge for operational IT roles. This practice exam prepares you for Systems Security Certified Practitioner (SSCP) across Security Concepts and Practices, Access Controls, Risk Identification, Monitoring and Analysis, Incident Response and Recovery, Cryptography, Network and Communications Security, and Systems and Application Security.

The exam emphasizes implementing, monitoring, and administering IT infrastructure; the ISC2 Code of Ethics and security concepts; authentication and access control models; risk identification, vulnerability management, and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM); Incident Response (IR), forensics, and Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP); cryptography and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI); network, wireless, and Internet of Things (IoT) security; and endpoint, mobile, cloud, and virtual environment security. It does not primarily assess managing an organization’s overall security program, expert-level security architecture, or hands-on application coding.

The official ISC2 SSCP exam uses Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT) and is 100–125 questions in 120 minutes, with a passing score of 700 out of 1000. This practice exam follows the seven official SSCP domains and their published weights.

The certification validates understanding of:

• Security Concepts and Practices: ISC2 Code of Ethics and organizational ethics; confidentiality, integrity, availability, accountability, non-repudiation, least privilege, and Segregation of Duties (SoD); technical, physical, and administrative controls; deterrent, preventative, detective, corrective, and compensating controls; asset management lifecycle including End Of Life (EOL); and change management including configuration management (CM).
• Access Controls: Single/Multi-factor authentication (MFA); single sign-on (SSO); device authentication including Trusted Platform Module (TPM); federated access including Open Authorization 2 (OAuth2) and Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML); internetwork trust including demilitarized zone (DMZ); identity management lifecycle and Identity and Access Management (IAM) systems; and mandatory, discretionary, role-based including Privileged Access Management (PAM), rule-based, and attribute-based access controls.
• Risk Identification, Monitoring and Analysis: risk visibility and reporting including risk register, Indicators of Compromise (IOC), Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), and MITRE ATT&CK; risk management frameworks, tolerance, and treatment; security assessments and vulnerability management; log management and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM); and analysis of monitoring results including baselines, anomalies, and escalation.
• Incident Response and Recovery: incident response lifecycle including National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) models covering preparation, detection, containment, eradication, recovery, and post-incident activities; forensic investigations including chain of custody; and Business Continuity Plan (BCP) and Disaster Recovery Plan (DRP) including Restore Time Objective (RTO), Restore Point Objectives (RPO), and Maximum Tolerable Downtime (MTD).
• Cryptography: confidentiality, integrity, authenticity, and data sensitivity including Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Protected Health Information (PHI); hashing, salting, symmetric and asymmetric encryption including Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC); Advanced Encryption Standards (AES) and Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA); Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC); secure protocols; and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) including key management, Web of Trust (WOT), Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), and GNU Privacy Guard (GPG).
• Network and Communications Security: Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) and Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) models; Software-Defined Networking (SDN); network attacks including distributed denial of service (DDoS) and man-in-the-middle (MITM); network access controls including IEEE 802.1X, Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS), and Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System Plus (TACACS+); segmentation including Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) and micro-segmentation; firewalls, Web Application Firewall (WAF), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Network Access Control (NAC), Data Loss Prevention (DLP), and Unified Threat Management (UTM); wireless including Wi-Fi Protected Access 2 (WPA2) and Wi-Fi Protected Access 3 (WPA3); and Internet of Things (IoT) security.
• Systems and Application Security: malware and malicious activity including ransomware, Advanced Persistent Threat (APT), and social engineering; endpoint controls including Host-based Intrusion Prevention System (HIPS), Host-based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS), and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR); mobile device administration including Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and Mobile Device Management (MDM); cloud security including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and the shared responsibility model; and virtual environments including hypervisors and containers.