malcolm.cloud

AWS Certified Security Speciality Recertification

By Malcolm van Staden on 3rd May 2021

Update 30th May 2021 - I wrote and passed my AWS Certified Security Speciality yesterday, I've updated this article with additional links and information.

I’m currently studying to renew my AWS Certified Security Speciality certification. In this post I’m going to share some of the resources that I’m using to prepare for this exam, the renewal and certification exam are the same exam so if this is the first time you’re studying for the Security Speciality exam you can use these materials too.

Exam Guide

Start off with downloading the official exam guide, this could change without notice so ensure you review this guide before working out your study plan.

A Cloud Guru

This course requires a subscription with A Cloud Guru (ACG), if you don’t haven’t signed up you should seriously consider it. ACG is really the best resource out there for cloud certifications, specifically AWS certification. Since they acquired Linux Academy their course catalog has expanded dramatically, I would recommend you take a look.

The course I’m doing is the AWS Certified Security Speciality 2020, which is an updated version of the original one.

YouTube Videos

Depending on your knowledge gaps you may want to look at additional videos but these that I’ve listed below are the basics you’d need to cover based on the exam guide.

White Papers

Reading isn’t always fun, especially dry technical papers, but the below white papers have invaluable nuggets of information that will inevitably crop up in the exam. Some of them are old however the content is still relevant today.

FAQs

Frequently asked questions aren’t the first thing you would think of reading to prepare for an exam, but these are hidden gems. I don’t study these and commit them to memory, my approach is to scan through them at least once during my preparation time and see what stands out. It’s not uncommon for something in the FAQs to appear in the exam. If you’re short on time you could skip these but you could be losing out on a few points.

The AWS Certification Quiz Show

Credit to Sandro Cirulli's blog post for these:

Notes Mindmap

A mind map of my notes if you're interested.

Good Luck

Good luck with your preparation and the exam!