CISSP
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Exam fee
$749
≈ 1,011 CAD · rolling-avg FX; verify with your bank before any payment
Exam code
CISSP
Renewal
3yr
The CISSP is a cybersecurity certification from ISC2 with an exam fee of $749 and a 3-year renewal cycle. Approved under DoD 8570. Built from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and ISC2's official exam requirements.
Always spelled out letter by letter.
About the CISSP
CISSP is the cybersecurity industry's gold standard for senior practitioners. It tests breadth across eight domains rather than depth in any single one, which makes it a management-track cert rather than a technical-track one. ISC2 requires five years of paid cumulative experience in two or more of the eight domains before you can earn the full CISSP designation; pass the exam without the experience and you become an Associate of ISC2 until you log the time. The exam itself uses computerized adaptive testing, which means the difficulty adjusts to your performance and the length varies from 100 to 150 questions.
Who should earn it
Senior security practitioners targeting architect, lead engineer, or CISO tracks. The right cert for professionals with five plus years of experience who want the broadest senior-level recognition.
Exam details
- Provider
- ISC2
- Exam code
- CISSP
- Questions
- 100-150 (adaptive)
- Duration
- 3 hours
- Passing score
- 700/1000
- Exam fee
- $749 (verify with ISC2)
- Renewal
- Every 3 years via CPE
- Experience level
- Advanced
- DoD 8570/8140
- Approved
Prerequisites
Five years of paid work experience in two or more of the eight CISSP domains. The experience requirement is enforced after you pass; an endorser who is already a CISSP holder must sign off.
Key domains
- Security and Risk Management
- Asset Security
- Security Architecture and Engineering
- Communication and Network Security
- Identity and Access Management
- Security Assessment and Testing
- Security Operations
- Software Development Security
Federal and DoD relevance
The CISSP is approved under DoD Directive 8570.01-M (now 8140), so cybersecurity roles supporting US Department of Defense information systems can use it to satisfy the baseline certification requirement for their IAT, IAM, or CSSP workforce category. That matters for federal contractors, cleared facilities, and agencies where 8140 compliance is a hiring gate.
Pay
DecipherU has no sourced pay figure for what this certification adds. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes pay by occupation, not by credential, so the roles below link to the BLS figures for their closest occupation.
Most relevant roles
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One ISC2 CC practice question Access Controls Concepts
A research scientist at a university creates a spreadsheet on a departmental file share. She right-clicks the file, opens its permissions, and grants read access to two colleagues and write access to one graduate student. No administrator was involved. Which access control model allows her to do this?
Pick an answer. We tell you right or wrong.
Planning a ISC2 CC exam date? See which version you are taking, with the owner dates and the day we read each one.
This role lives inside a packaged path
Want the curriculum, comp delta, and recommended courses for this role?
DecipherU bundles cybersecurity roles into a small set of packaged paths. Each path has the curriculum sequence, the published salary data for the role, and the recommended courses, all pre-set. Two ways in:
Practice this exam
- ISC2 CISSPScenario practice for the ISC2 CISSP exam, one domain at a time, with right or wrong on every answer. The full analysis adds the source.
Certification details are sourced from official certifying body websites. Verify current pricing, exam format, and requirements directly with the certifying organization before making decisions. DecipherU is not affiliated with any certifying body.
Exam code CISSP. ISC2 publishes 8 domains: Security and Risk Management, Asset Security, Security Architecture and Engineering, Communication and Network Security, Identity and Access Management, Security Assessment and Testing, Security Operations, Software Development Security. Practice questions on DecipherU are grouped by those domains.
Up to 100-150 (adaptive) questions in 3 hours, with a passing score of 700/1000, according to ISC2. Formats and counts change between exam versions, so confirm on the ISC2 site before you book.
ISC2 lists the exam fee at $749 USD. Vouchers, bundles and regional pricing differ; the fee on the ISC2 site at checkout is the one that applies.
3 years, per ISC2. Renewal is through continuing education credits or by passing a current exam; ISC2 sets the credit count and the deadline.
Five years of paid work experience in two or more of the eight CISSP domains. The experience requirement is enforced after you pass; an endorser who is already a CISSP holder must sign off.
Next step
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Sources
- ISC2 official website · Certification pricing, exam format, and renewal requirements
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025
Bridge to Applied AI
Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer
Both credentials certify senior architectural judgment within their domain. CISSP holders pursuing AI security or AI governance often pair this with the Google Cloud ML Engineer credential to signal multi-domain technical depth.
Read the Google Cloud Professional Machine Learning Engineer guide →Related Cybersecurity Resources
Wondering if CISSP is right for you?
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DecipherU's career insights are drafted with AI assistance from the sources named on the page, under the method set by Julian Calvo, Ed.D. No named person has reviewed this page unless it says so. Career and compensation data come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, O*NET, and industry compensation databases. Assessment frameworks are grounded in peer-reviewed psychometric research, learning sciences (University of Miami) and organizational learning (Barry University). AI is used as a research and drafting tool; the methodology, framework design, scoring and editorial standards are set by DecipherU.