Demand for qualified and certified information systems (IS) auditors has increased dramatically since the adoption of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002. Now you can prepare for CISA certification, the one certification designed specifically for IS auditors, and improve your job skills with this valuable book. Not only will you get the valuable preparation you need for the CISA exam, you?ll also find practical information to prepare you for the real world. This invaluable guide Authoritative coverage of all CISA exam objectives, Practical information that will prepare you for the real world such Additional exam and career preparation tools such A free CD-ROM
I used this in conjunction with the ISACA question and answer books available on their site. This book did a good job of giving me the basics while the question/answer books gave me a good feel for the kind of questions asked on the exam.
Don't rely on the questions in this book to offer much in the way of actual exam preparation - those questions are NOTHING like the questions on the exam, but the fundamentals taught in the book are essential.
Going into this I have been working as a Security systems auditor/analyst for two years, but never had any official education or training, so I was essentially a NOOB.
~~~ earlier comment on the book~~~ much more interesting than I would have thought. I take the exam in June and still have a good chunk of time to prepare. I'll update this with my exam results and thoughts on how much assistance the book provided after that time.
It seems to give a good introduction to the CISA exam requirements. I found the SDLC chapter to be a bit archaic with its talk of of 3, 4GL and 5 GL languages (kinda late 90s), saying that ERD was the way to diagrams systems and requirements (and not UML), that structured programming was best practices and doesn't even refer to object oriented programming. Its reference to IT people being equivalent to servants in a mansion (since servants don't know how the masters get their wealth) is a bit harsh and was a weird analogy although it goes to pains to explain that auditors shouldn't make fun of IT people. So, apart from these quirks, it seemed to be a good book to prepare for the CISA exam. I'll likely take the online course from ISACA to prepare for the exam and likely get their Q/A as I'm planning to take the CISA exam in June 2012.
A good introduction to information system auditing topic, especially when you're preparing to CISA. I found that almost all question on June 2008 CISA exam are covered by this book.
The new materials are introduced gently, along with key objectives, that makes people easily grasps the ideas, either they're coming from IT background or for audit/management background.
Thorough, easy-to-read and much less dry than the official ISACA study guide. Good level of technical detail while remaining accessible even to those from a non-tech background.
Use in conjunction with the ISACA guide and, more importantly, the ISACA sample test bank. The chapter review questions are useful but don't reflect the difficulty or style of the official ISACA questions.