Get Certified! All You Need to Know to Rock GIAC Exams
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- Опубліковано 12 кві 2020
- Voltaire is a web-based indexing tool for GIAC certification examinations. Creating an index with Voltaire is a simple three phase process involving: documentation/note-taking, sorting & normalization, and word processing.
Voltaire Website: voltaire.publickey.io - Наука та технологія
Thanks Matthew, I just finished the SEC401 and this indexing method using your tool will save me valuable time. Thank you for taking the time to build it.
Great tips! +1 for professional binding. My first two indexes were in 3-ring binders and were really clunky. The wire binding made flipping through much easier last time and definitely saved me precious time during the exam.
Passed my first GIAC exam on the first attempt thanks to your tool and advice.
Thanks so much. I’ve been struggling with how to go about indexing and what technique to use. Valid points made in your video.
Matthew - As a security professional myself, I just want to point out and say congratulations as I think you're the only UA-camr with a video with no negative dislikes in 2021. 😄😄 #ThatIsAll
Thank you! I've been quite stubborn to use indexing when taking SANS exams. My track record is screaming for the change. In my last exam attempt, I made my own "indexing" but nothing like what you did. I almost ran out of time, and it wasn't as put together as I thought it was. I am hopeful that your video and tool will put me on a better path to properly prepare for this next upcoming exam!! Also my exam is your 460, so #LetsGetIt :D
Hell yeah! Good luck!
Great Video Matthew. Thank you for making this and walking through the process of creating an index. I am currently in the process of building my first ever index using Voltaire. I have approximately 300 entries so far pretty much covering all alphabets and numbers. However, I noticed that when I export my index as a word doc, I am not able to see any entries for #s and zZ section. I understand with the new version of Voltaire # section from the indexes was removed. But not sure what is going on with zZ section.
I'm preparing for the SEC540 exam and I've been sweating bullets trying to find the best way to create an index. So glad I found your video because I would have done this all wrong. This is my first GIAC exam, so I didn't know any of this was even possible! I'm a month out from my test, but I plan to start using your tool today. I'd like to share this info on the GIAC Reddit if thats ok. Thanks so much!
Of course that’s okay! And I’m glad this was helpful for you!
Does anyone have a google sheets template for the indexing?
Very useful information. Thanks. It does appear to be choppy on my end. Not sure if there is an issue with my connection.
Hi Matt. Great Tool. When I try and export to a Word Doc. Nothing starting with W shows up. Any ideas why?
Think you need to update the link here since you've added a redirect and require discord to log into your open security site.
GSEC in 2 days on 8/26. Taking it remote, lets get it.
PASSED!!!!!!
@@ellerionsnow3340 Congrats on the win. Which one did you take? And did you self study or took specific training.
@@LionOfAllah Thanks so much! I took the GIAC GSEC exam. I am enrolled in their undergraduate program so I take the class online provided through SANS then the final exam is the Cert test. I will be taking the GIAC GCIH as the final for my next class starting on the 15.
@@ellerionsnow3340 congratulations!!!
Hey! Great video! Is your tool still there? The link is not working 😢
i am unable to login to the web app
Hey Matt, you are an absolute God send. I realized after creating my excel sheet that it was going to be a pain to try and alphabetize and then print and this solved that completely. One thing I did want to ask, how do you handle topics that are mentioned across multiple pages and multiple books. For example the "ls" command is mentioned in GCIH 2:33, 2:90, 3:70, 3:73, 3:88 etc. I tried separating by commas, but I ended up with a format of b2,2,3,3,3,3 /p33,90,70,73,88. Is there a better way to tackle this? I'd hate to get my pages / books mixed up in the chaos of the exam. Creating a new listing for each individual term isn't really feasible for me since I already have 1800+ entries... In any case thank you again for this tool. It is amazing.
Hi John! I’m glad this is helping! Personally… I do create an entry for each reused term normally I do it like this:
Metasploit
Metasploit - Encoders
Metapsloit - PSExec
Metapsloit - etc
That helps me always know which one I want to look up. 1800 entries is a lot. In my experience you start to get diminishing returns pretty quickly, and eventually if your index gets too large adding to it might actually be counter productive. It’s never terrible, but it certainly takes a lot of time for little if any benefit if you go too pedantic on the indexing. Good luck!
I've been having the same issue as others with not seeing any entries for the Zz title. I've added a letter for every portion in the index and the export doesn't scrape past Y.
Awesome tool otherwise. I'd recommend keeping the option to export as an HTML page in order to preview your index before sending it out as a word doc that way you can check if all your terms were captured or if expected terms you captured are missing.
Hi Matthew, Ty for making this! What do you usually put in description? Would it be good to just put keywords related to the title/topic instead of a short summary?
You can absolutely do that! The description is 100% up to you and what you find most valuable to jog your memory. The goal of the description field is for it to sometimes (all be it rarely) jog our memory such that we don’t even need to reach for the books at all.
Hi Matthew, just visited the voltaire site to create a index for my 572 I'm taking in a few weeks. I have been unable to create an index using the upload spreadsheet function. I have tried both CSV and Excel. A colleague of mine had an index on the site a few weeks ago and just tried to upload his spreadsheet again to test if it was something wrong at my end. It seems that the function isn't working. Any suggestions to a fix or work around? Thanks.
Try this. Create a new index. Click add row a bunch to add in blank cells, then just copy/paste from your excel straight in. I’ll take a look at the auto import feature in the meantime. I’ll post updates on my Twitter account. @0sm0s1z
This bug has now been fixed. Happy hacking!
How do you add terms that are in multiple books?
You can actually just add the same title multiple times.
Following your instructions to use this tool:
I've tried on multiple browsers and get the same reults each time.
When you import an excel file, you get a nice GIAC logo on your index main page, mine instead of an image says "img". How would I change that?
Then why I try to "Generate/Download" the index, in Chromium the "Generate" button does nothing and in FireFox it either does nothing or creates a file only with letter headings A-Z but no content (an 8 KB file).
The settings pages also does absolutely nothing.
How do I fix these issues?
Looks like you have a format issue in your index that is causing the generate to fail. It might be a weird character like a / in one of your titles. That should resolve you issue. The GIAC logo is actually just there for aesthetics. GIAC recently changed their site. At some point I’ll have to go in and reset that image. It won’t affect your build though. It just looks odd.
@@MatthewToussain (UPDATED) That was the issue thanks. Is it all special characters that can't be used?
Is there a difference between books from SANS (blue books) and books from sans technology institute
That book you showed at 4:47, how do I get it? Because it is different from the blue books of SANS
I made the book at 4:47 myself. This video is a tutorial on how to do that.
I don't know if it's done on purpose due to the copyright contents but I can't see anything when you hold up the material.. don't care about the content but just interested in seeing the structure of the index material.
Not on purpose. It’s just the brightness of the camera. Check out the other video on this though. It shows the final contents off better. You could also just make one line in Voltaire and export that to see.
Great video but there is some serious buffering issues from where it was recorded to being uploaded. Even if you change the resolution the problem persists so it’s possibly the original video source.
Buffering issues?
@@MatthewToussain I checked the video today so I could capture my issues but it doesn't show any issues so it might have been my connection yesterday... Great content I am doing my first index so this information really helps, thank you.
Lucantis K awesome! Good to know!
@@MatthewToussain Yes, there are still some issues with the video.
Hi, I am confused about the certification maintenance cost. Is it really $400 maintenance fees for every cert every 4 years?
I think that's correct. The GSE certification does automatically renew all other GIAC certifications though.
Keep in mind the passing score is a C-, so just study the material and you will only have to look up the really tough / tricky stuff.
😆😆😆😆😆 thanks for the video....I have to work my ass to pass the GIAC😕
Off topic: looks like you have quite a few GIAC certs, do you actually still renew all your certs? Kind of pricey!
Nope! I don’t think a single one of my certifications is still valid. I rejoiced when my CEH expired and I’m fortunate that I don’t need to maintain these for employment purposes.
The question is do I have to bring my Workbook to the exam?
It can’t hurt, right? It’s definitely on the list of testable material.
This looks great but I am having problems accessing this page with a mac. Safari appears to be a no-go and there Firefox loops me back to the home page when I click on the Login button. Do you have any recommendations for me? Thank you!
Absolutely. I’m not sure about Safari, but I know what’s up with FF. It’s a google authentication issue. Generally, swapping systems / browsers does the trick. Eventually the broken session will expire, and then you can go back to the previous browser as well.
I’d also recommend Chrome. That browser and FF are what I designed it in so I know that (baring Google auth issues like you’re having) those work.
@@MatthewToussain Thanks Matt! It does work from my Windows machine. The problem I am having now is the Build Index button creates an empty file. I removed the commas, saved the spreadsheet to a .csv file, and imported. The current import feature looks different and the process seems to be different. I am unable to configure my tool bar, copy and paste from the .csv file with notepad to a text window in Voltaire (no text window appears, no import button when editing). When I use the import index button it reads the file in and appears fine. But when I click on build index, the application generates an index file but it is blank. Any suggestions? Many thanks!
@@michaelrodriguez4588certainly! So this video is rather old there are actually three newer Voltaire tutorials on UA-cam.
Build index now handles everything for you. No janky copy/paste necessary. There’s also a full support system built into the tool. You can access that from the discord link in the top right. I’m certain that you can find answers and support there for questions you may not even have known to ask!
On to the issue. When that happens it’s typically because you’ve got some very weird character in your index and that can be hard to identify. First, I’d try checking to see if you can build an index at all. Create a new one, add five lines, and build it. See if it works without the complexity. If it does we know that there’s something wrong with your data.
Two ways to fix that. The easiest way is to just highlight everything in your index and paste it into excel. Then import it back with the import xlsx feature. That will often sanitize your input.
If that doesn’t work, just go chunk by chunk until it stops working and you’ll know where the issue is. Rectify that across your data and bam! Good luck with your index/exam.
Again, I highly recommend the discord. It’s much easier to answer your questions than in the UA-cam comment section.
Also, if you head to the discord, you’ll see a more in depth version of the above as that question comes up every now and again.
@@MatthewToussain Got it, I'll give this a go - Thanks!
Haha, "I'm colorblind, so i might be wrong...", glad to see I'm not the only one in this field 😃
It’s the WORST my friend! I keep trying to do UI design and people are all… “you know that’s not red right? Matt???”
Hey Matthew , when I try exporting my index , the tool doesn't export.
I’m happy to help, but I’ll need more info than that. Jump on the tool’s discord, and we’ll get you sorted out: discord.gg/opensecurity
@@MatthewToussain Same issue. Its not working.. Exam in few days time omg
@@khaichuanteo1797 didja try jumping on the discord? We’ll get ya sorted
how do I get those books?
I’m happy to answer your question, but I’m not sure I understand. Which books do you mean? The courseware or the indexes that this video walks you through making?
@@MatthewToussain Thanks. I got the answer I was looking for. Is there any age limit for this exam ?
@@bhuvanavinuth7554 not as far as I’m aware.
Link is not working
I just checked. Everything is working fine. Note that mobile browsers aren’t supported.
@@MatthewToussain thank you for your reply, yeah I was trying to access it by my phone. It is working fine on my laptop. Thank you Matthew
@@m7mzz epic! I love it when the solution is ez!
dont see the goggle doc
What google doc?
@@MatthewToussain Hey, I think they are referencing this part, 22:46 / 41:02
@@zainlakhani6074 oh wow that’s interesting. The video is from a live screen so I never considered that. Good catch. That docs a bit legacy after all these years though 😅
@@MatthewToussain Haha yeah I figured, I am building my index right now with Voltaire for my CEVA Attempt. In honesty i forgot I had scheduled and i just realized its on Tuesday so ive been cramming for the last few days. I do have quick question if you do not mind. I have already gone through all of the SEC 460 Ondemand Video and the Books Once. Im not able to copy text directly from the Ondemand Course book. That privilege would make it significantly faster in building the index. Is that by design?