Digital Forensics Tips

I got some great advice recently on creating an index for SANS exams and I wanted to write a blog post to share it with others. I took the SANS FOR 508 Computer Forensics course in 2008. It was way over my head but I had a great time and learned a ton. A few months ago I finally decided to go for my GCFA certification. I had four year old material from a course that had been completely revamped and no index. I passed the exam with a score in the 80s but it was a grueling experience. I had to rush on the last part of the exam and never felt comfortable. A few months after my GCFA exam I got an opportunity to attend a SANS SEC 504 class. I really wanted to prepare for my GCIH exam the right way so while I was at the conference I asked several individuals how they prepared their index. Most people told me that their indexes were 8-10 pages. A lot of these people had more SANS certs than I have friends so their methods obviously worked for them. My class had a teaching assistant (also SANS

I’m a few days late in posting this but last Monday I passed my GCIH exam with a 94. SANS advisory board here I come!!! I watched the course in the On Demand format taught by Ed Skoudis and attended the live training taught by John Strand. It was very time consuming but well worth it to get the material from two world class instructors with different points of view. The key to my high score was taking some great advice from a SANS teaching assistant & mentor named Neal Bridges who encouraged me to make a detailed (mine ended up around 30 pages) index and was kind enough to show me his GSEC index so I had an idea on how to format mine. I’ll write up a blog post soon where I’ll discuss my index and show a few samples.