ISC2 Information Systems Security Management Professional (ISSMP) Practice Exams

ISC2's CISSP-track security management specialization. Built for CISOs, security directors, and senior security managers who lead enterprise security programs. 10 free questions across the six ISSMP domains, detailed explanations on every answer, randomized every attempt.

Free Questions
10
Passing Score
700 / 1000
Randomized
Every attempt

About the ISC2 ISSMP exam

Exam at a glance

The most business- and management-oriented certification in the ISC2 portfolio — a professional-tier CISSP concentration.

Where ISSMP sits in the ISC2 portfolio

ISSMP is one of three CISSP concentrations — ISSAP (architecture), ISSEP (engineering), and ISSMP (management). Where CISSP covers security management at a survey level, ISSMP goes deep into actually running a security program: budgets, governance, organizational alignment, regulatory environments, threat intelligence operationalization, and executive communication. It is the strongest fit for current and aspiring CISOs, heads of security, and senior security managers.

Domain weighting (six domains)

  • Leadership and Business Management — 22%
  • Systems Lifecycle Management — 19%
  • Risk Management — 18%
  • Threat Intelligence and Incident Management — 17%
  • Contingency Management — 15%
  • Law, Ethics, and Security Compliance Management — 9%

Leadership and Business Management alone is almost a quarter of the exam. Combined with Risk Management and Contingency Management, more than half the test is about running a program at the executive level — not configuring controls.

Core topics tested

  • Security program leadership — building and managing security teams, defining roles, succession planning, mentoring.
  • Budgeting and resource allocation — building security budgets, defending them to executives and the board, prioritizing spend against risk.
  • Strategic alignment — mapping security objectives to business strategy, board-level reporting, security as a business enabler.
  • Enterprise risk management — program-level risk frameworks, third-party and supply-chain risk, risk appetite and tolerance.
  • Threat intelligence operationalization — building and consuming intelligence feeds, integrating intel into SOC and IR.
  • Incident management at the executive level — executive comms during a breach, regulatory and law-enforcement notification, post-incident reporting.
  • Contingency planning — enterprise BCP/DRP, crisis management, resilience and recovery strategy.
  • Legal, regulatory, and ethics — GDPR, HIPAA, PCI DSS, SOX, cross-border data flows, the ISC2 Code of Ethics applied to leadership decisions.
  • Vendor and third-party management — security in procurement, contractual controls, ongoing assurance, supply-chain risk programs.

Prerequisites

Either an active CISSP credential plus two years of cumulative paid work experience in one or more of the six ISSMP domains, OR seven years of cumulative paid work experience in one or more of the six ISSMP domains without holding CISSP. Most candidates take the CISSP path because ISSMP is positioned as a concentration built on top of the CISSP body of knowledge.

Why take this certification

  • Strongest leadership signal in the ISC2 portfolio. ISSMP is recognized in U.S. DoDM 8140.03 for senior security management roles and is one of the few certifications that specifically validates security executive capability, not technical depth.
  • Career-stage-specific. Unlike CISSP (broad), ISSAP (architect track), or ISSEP (federal engineering track), ISSMP signals exactly one thing: you operate at the security leadership level. CISOs, security directors, heads of security, and senior security managers benefit; individual contributors generally do not.
  • Depth over breadth on management. CISSP touches every domain at a survey level. ISSMP commits the full body of knowledge to running a program — the reading list is heavy on governance, regulatory frameworks, and management theory rather than configuration.
  • Maintains CISSP currency. CPEs earned for ISSMP also count toward CISSP renewal, so for active CISSP holders the marginal recertification cost is mostly time, not effort.