Cisco Secure VPN Exam Certification Guide - Cisco press

8 Chapter 1: All About the Cisco Certified Security Professional

Topics on the Cisco Secure VPN Exam

Although you might not know what questions you are going to see on the exam, you do have access to the exam topics. If you study these topic areas, you should do well on this exam. The design of this book is based on the exam topics. Each chapter in this book corresponds to a major topic area and contains the information that you need to study to thoroughly cover the exam topic material. Table 1-2 shows the topics for the Cisco Secure VPN exam.

10 Chapter 1: All About the Cisco Certified Security Professional

Table 1-2 CSVPN Exam Topics (Continued)

Recommended Training Path for the CCSP Certification

The Cisco recommended training path for the CCSP certification is to attend the instructor-led training courses offered by Cisco Learning Partner. The following courses are designed around lots of lab work so that you can get practical experience configuring or managing the devices that you are studying:

•Securing Cisco IOS Networks (SECUR)—This five-day course is an update to Version 3.0 of the Managing Cisco Network Security (MCNS) course. This task-oriented course teaches the knowledge and skills needed to secure Cisco IOS router networks.

•Cisco Secure PIX Firewall Advanced (CSPFA)—This four-day course teaches you how to describe, configure, verify, and manage all aspects of the PIX Firewall product.

•Cisco Secure Intrusion Detection System (CSIDS)—This three-day course teaches you how to use the Cisco Intrusion Detection System to detect and respond to network attacks. Additionally, you learn how to manage, administer, and monitor your intrusion detection systems.

•Cisco Secure VPN (CSVPN)—This four-day course teaches you how to describe, configure, verify, and manage the Cisco VPN 3000 Concentrator, the Cisco VPN 3.1 Software Client, and the Cisco VPN 3002 Hardware Client.

•Cisco SAFE Implementation (CSI)—This four-day course teaches you how to understand and apply the axioms described in the SAFE blueprint as applied to small, medium, and remote user networks.

Many students find the labs an invaluable learning aid. That fact, coupled with knowledgeable instructors, helps to make these courses popular and effective. You can couple these training classes with the associated Cisco Press Exam Certification Guide or Self-Study Guide to obtain broad knowledge and experience with the subject material in the class and then target that knowledge and experience toward the specific topics of the exam.

Final Exam Preparation Tips 11

Using This Book to Pass the Exam

Each of the following chapters in this book contains four components, and many contain a fifth optional component. The four main components within each chapter and the optional component are as follows:

•A short preassessment quiz titled “Do I Know This Already?”.

•A “Foundation Topics” section that contains the major topics of the chapter.

•A “Foundation Summary” section that summarizes the key points of the chapter.

•A longer postassessment quiz entitled “Q&A”.

•The optional section includes scenarios and scenario-related questions and exercises. Scenarios are included in chapters where the content lends itself to hands-on, criticalthinking exercises. The scenarios section is not included in chapters that are conceptual in nature; these chapters do not lend themselves to scenario-based questions and exercises.

You should begin each chapter by honestly taking the “Do I Know This Already?” quiz at the beginning. The questions are all fill-in-the-blank types that ask for objective—rather than subjective—answers. You can find the answers to the questions in Appendix A. If you miss only one or two of the questions, you already have a good understanding of the chapter’s material, and you can opt to skip the chapter and move on to the next.

If you only miss a few questions on the prechapter test, you should plan on studying the Foundation Summary and completing the Q&A and the Scenarios sections at the end of the chapter. These three areas should provide the extra information that would allow you to master the chapter’s material. If you miss any more than four or five questions in the “Do I Know This Already?” quiz, plan on devoting time to study the entire chapter.

Do not skip the chapter quizzes! You are preparing for an exam that consists of questions about the subject of VPNs and VPN concentrators. The more questions you attempt that cover the same topics, the better the odds that you will have seen most of the questions that are on the exam. Just as a baseball hitter gains confidence by taking batting practice before stepping up to the plate to face a pitcher, you too can gain confidence by attempting the chapter quizzes before taking the exam.

Final Exam Preparation Tips

This book contains most of the material that you need to pass the Cisco Secure VPN exam. Remember, you do not need to know all the answers to pass the exam. Few individuals become certified having received 100 percent on any of the required exams. For the record, the tests are only graded Pass or Fail. Passing by one point is just as good as passing with 100 percent as far as the certification process is concerned.

Although you do not need to answer 100 percent of the questions correctly, you should study all the material in this book because you do not know what areas will be covered by the test you

Exam Topics Discussed in This Chapter

This chapter covers the following topics, which you need to master in your pursuit of certification as a Cisco Certified Security Professional:

1Cisco products enable a secure VPN

2IPSec overview

3IPSec protocol framework

4How IPSec works

C H A P T E R 2

Overview of VPN and IPSec

Technologies

The Internet is an integral part of business communications today. Corporations use it as an inexpensive extension of their localor wide-area networks. A local connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) enables far-reaching communications for e-commerce, mobile users, sales personnel, and global business partners. The Internet is cheap, easily enabled, stable, resilient, and omnipresent. But it is not secure, at least not in its native state.

As a corporate user, you want to shield your communications from misdirection, misappropriation, and misuse, especially if you are discussing trade secrets, personnel issues, or financial information. Ideally, you want to be able to establish a pipeline through the Internet cloud that goes from point A to point B and shields your data from prying eyes along the way. TCP/IP is the foundation of the Internet and provides little in the way of security.

That is where Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) come to the rescue. This clever concept can provide the security that you need with a variety of features. VPNs can provide security through point-to-point encryption of data, data integrity by ensuring that the data packets have not been altered en route, and authentication to ensure that the packets are coming from the right source. VPNs enable an efficient and cost-effective method for secure communications across the Internet’s public infrastructure. Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) is the Cisco protocol of choice for establishing VPNs. This chapter provides an overview of VPNs and IPSec and discusses the technologies that Cisco products bring to this useful technology.

How to Best Use This Chapter

By taking the following steps, you can make better use of your time:

•Keep your notes and answers for all your work with this book in one place for easy reference.

•Take the “Do I Know This Already?” quiz, and write down your answers. Studies show that retention is significantly increased through writing facts and concepts down, even if you never look at the information again.

•Use the diagram in Figure 2-1 to guide you to the next step.

“Do I Know This Already?” Quiz 17

1Which Cisco hardware product families support IPSec VPN technology?

2What are the two IPSec protocols?

3Which type of VPNs use a combination of the same infrastructures that are used by the other two types of VPNs?

4Which of the Cisco VPN 3000 Series Concentrators is a fixed-configuration device?

5What key element is contained in the AH or ESP packet header?