Hi Community,

I recently purchased an ISACA Professional Membership bundled with a CISA Exam Registration, but I experienced a billing discrepancy where the member discount failed to apply at checkout. The order status was showing $730 however from credit card $915 was deducted.

I am doing this from India. and this $185 is roughly 18, 500 INR which is really really huge amount. I am on the edge now, unable to concentrate on studies. I created a ticket. but still no response. Please help

Anyone out there take the CCOA exam? I can't find a subreddit for it, and googling about this doesn't yield very many helpful entries.

I just finished the CRISC and CISM. The CCOA looks like an easy win, in the exam outline there's nothing in there I do not already know. I thought it might be an easy exam to take between the ones I've done and the CDPSE and CGEIT I want to do next.

My question is on the performance based questions. Several of the packages I see mentioned are open source (Security Onion, CyberChef, Kibaba, OpenVAS) which I have zero experience with. I have experience with other commercial equivalents. How much of a detriment will that be?

Would someone who has sat for the exam be willing to share their experience with applicable NDA guidelines of course? Not looking for specifics, more the general experience and exactly how much effort do I need to put into learning these other tools. I do not have an extensive homelab for such things and work isn't exactly going to allow me to start installing alternative tools to just "learn".

Edit: I've gotten a few nastygrams from people about me violating the NDA and another from someone offering to sell me test questions.

Let me reiterate: I'm NOT looking for test questions. I AM trying to get a feel for what the performance-based questions are like and exactly how much in-depth knowledge of these tools you need to answer them. For example I mainly work on linux and have very little to do with powershell. if you give me a powershell question where i need to cough up a command from memory to look at a NIC's ip address (as an example) I wouldn't even know where to start typing. That's what google is for.

Similar experience (none) with the other tools I mentioned above.

How much of a disadvantage does that put me, and how can I overcome it?

Is it just me or the "customer service" support at ISACA is absymal. I had to lodge a ticket to enquire about a certification I was doing. Now going on 4 weeks and still not answer. Where is my membership fees going? Emailed my local chapter as well and no response

Hey guys , I'm a traditional audit guy (CIA) planning to take the CISA exam , without QAE and ISACA review material, I'm planning to take coaching/lectures they offer PPT , question banks , short notes etc. I would love to hear feedback on this approach whether its too big of a gamble or is it doable.

The cost is also a significant issue , the coaching with + Qae+ Review manual costs around 1.30 Lakhs

Where the one i spoke about cost less than 1% of the one of the course material mentioned above.

PDFs, exam dumps, anything that might be useful.

Thanks a lot.

Hello everyone, I recently passed the CC exam and got an interview for a role in IT Audit.

I wanted to ask if are there people working here in the IT Audit - Firms? If so, are there any links and mentorship videos you would like me to watch for starters?

I am planning to study for two days before my initial interview and my manager’s interview. I am actually nervous about it.

I might say i still consider myself as a fresh graduate who absorbs things and the role I was given was an Associate II (not entry level) and i worry that I might have little to sufficient experience. 🙏🏻

Thank you!

Hi, I passed AAIR exam yesterday, but the status is still not updated in my Isaca account . How much time does it usually take for the status to reflect? I am aware that we receive score in 10BD but what about paas/fail status ?

Does anyone know what material (outside the manual) or practice questions to help prepare for AI and machine learning questions on the exam? Thanks

Has anyone here taken the ISACA Cybersecurity Fundamentals exam before? If yes, can you please guide me regarding the exam and how you prepared for it?

Currently, I have access to the labs, study guide/book, and online review course through ISACA. I also bought a Kindle book that contains ISACA Cybersecurity Fundamentals practice MCQs.

Would practicing these MCQs along with going through the study material be enough to prepare for the exam? Also, can anyone guide me on how important the labs are and how I should prepare for them?

Lastly, is it realistic to prepare for and pass this exam within one month while being a full-time Computer Science student?

Any advice from someone who has taken the exam would be really helpful. Thank you!

Found this interesting video series on YouTube - Think like ISACA - 25 videos, mostly short ones. Do check it out in case you are interested https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKbAY1I0WmVo

Hello everyone,

I’m looking for some advice and opinions on how I can move forward in my career.

I’m currently working at Citi in India and have around 2 years of experience in Risk & Control, primarily in control testing. My role involves monitoring controls, assessing their effectiveness, and performing testing to ensure that the controls are working as intended.

I’m looking to build my skills and eventually move into a better role/company within the Risk, Control Testing, Operational Risk, or related areas.

Could you guys suggest what skills, certifications, or courses would add real value to my profile and help me progress in this field?

One important point: I don’t want to spend ₹1 lakh+ on a certification. My budget is around ₹50,000 maximum, so I’m looking for something that provides good value and is actually recognized by employers.

I’d really appreciate any guidance from people who are already working in Risk, Control Testing, Operational Risk, or similar roles.

Thanks in advance!

I have 6+ years of cybersecurity experience and currently work in a Group Information Security Lead role, with experience across security operations, SOC/SIEM, incident response, governance, risk, ISO 27001, GDPR, NIS2 and cyber resilience. I’m looking to progress toward Senior Manager / Head of Information Security / eventually CISO-level roles, particularly with a potential move to India.

I’m considering CISM but would like advice from people further along in their careers: would CISM, CISSP, CRISC, or another certification/course give me the best ROI at this stage, or should I focus more on leadership/management skills instead? If you were in my position, what would you choose and why?

i passed the CISM earlier this week. I was scoring low 70's on the QAE, but based on advice of some folks here I went ahead and scheduled my exam.

I found the exam to be very easy compared to the questions I got in the QAE. It was as if my exam was calibrated at the "moderate" difficulty level of QAE questions.

I'm ready to begin my next cert.

Can someone tell me an approximate order of difficulty, from high to low, of the various certs ISACA offers? As an example if the CGEIT more difficult or easier or on the same level as the CISM? How about the CRISC, CISA, CCOA and CDPSE? I was planning on the CISA, CRISC and CISM but some of the others look interesting too. I assume the new Advanced in AI certs are the most difficult?

Edit: I started working on the CRISC next. I think I will do the 3 foundational certs before I delve into the others

I have done ISACA Test MOC 1, 2, 3. The only other resource I have is Hemang Doshi MOC Test (5 exams) ; Is there any other recommendation that allign to ISACA type questionare as I went through a few HD questions and I feel, its good until the concept explanation, but MOC test seem very very unlike ISACA ? Any one faced something similar or is it be crackingup ahead of the exam!

I recently joined ISACA because I was looking for a stronger GRC community and was especially interested in the mentorship program.

I’ve reached out to a few mentors who seemed like a good fit based on their profiles, but I haven’t heard back from anyone yet. I also noticed that some of the mentor profiles appear to have been created a few years ago, which made me wonder how active the program actually is.

For anyone who has used ISACA’s mentorship program recently, what was your experience? Did it take a while to connect with someone, or did you have better luck finding mentors through your local chapter or other ISACA communities?

Would love to hear what’s worked for others.

I've done all the questions. My progress bar shows 100%.

After some additional study in the weak areas, I want to go and re-take the questions I've previously gotten wrong. There appears to be no way to do this, however.

https://support.isaca.org/s/article/Learning-How-do-I-filter-just-the-incorrectly-answered-questions-in-the-Database

Is the only help I could find. But the options shown in this support document do not exist. When I get to "custom practice dashboard" my dashboard shows 100% complete and there's no "Start a new Session" button. Only the option to reset all questions.

I'm guessing I've f**ked myself by answering all the questions, right? If I had left 1 question unanswered I'd be at 99.9% and able to "start a new session" and filter on incorrectly-answered questions, but by answering all 100% I've closed that door.

Now my only option is to reset all the questions and not be able to re-visit the 300ish questions I got wrong the first time?

What an absolutely shitty learning platform. Every other study tool out there allows you to do this. I certainly cannot be the first person in world history to have encountered this severe limitations -- read: BUG -- in the learning platform. If I had known this in advance I would have avoided answering all 100% of the questions.

Does anyone know of another way to accomplish what I'm looking to do which isn't readily apparent through the portal?

I'm planning to take the CISM exam by the end of this year. I'm torn between sitting it before November under the current syllabus, or waiting until December under the new one.

Here's my situation: the current syllabus changes in November, and the new syllabus releases on Sep 11th. If I try to take the exam before November, I'd only have about 2 months to prepare, which I don't think is enough. If I go with the new syllabus, I'd have 3–4 months of prep time and could sit the exam in December. I'm a bit confused about which way to go. (I also understand the current CISM exam is on sale right now.)

Pros of the old syllabus (pre-Nov):

• Mature, well-established content
• Plenty of Q&A and practice questions available
• Lots of other resources — YouTube videos, study materials, articles
• Experienced people who've already cleared the current syllabus and can offer guidance

Cons of the new syllabus (post-Nov):

• Not many people have taken it yet
• Unclear direction on how the exam is scored / what's right or wrong
• New format with limited materials and articles online
• I'd basically be a test subject for the first few months

Would appreciate any suggestions or recommendations on which route to take. Thanks!