Key Details
- Performance: Phil Martin narrates his own material, giving every acronym and domain the correct pronunciation and emphasis a hired voice actor might miss.
- What it covers: CISSP exam preparation, information security fundamentals, breadth-focused certification study.
- Feel: Brisk, instructional, no-nonsense.
- Our call: A strong, efficient breadth-first CISSP primer best used alongside deeper study rather than as a sole standalone resource.
Sixteen hours and fifty-five minutes of one man explaining, in his own voice, exactly how the CISSP body of knowledge actually works: that is the entire pitch of Simple CISSP, and Phil Martin, the author, is also the narrator delivering every acronym and security concept himself. Updated for the 2015 CISSP Common Body of Knowledge from ISC2, this audiobook is built around a specific promise, cutting the padding many competing study guides carry without cutting the substance security professionals actually need.
Martin narrating his own material is a genuine structural advantage here, not just a nice-to-have detail. A hired voice actor reading unfamiliar security terminology cold risks mispronunciation or flat, undifferentiated emphasis across genuinely different domains, while Martin, having written the content and worked in the industry himself, knows exactly which acronym needs to land with weight and which passage is safe to move through quickly. That pedagogical instinct, knowing where a listener's attention actually needs to focus, is something a general-purpose narrator without domain expertise simply cannot replicate.
CISSP certification carries real weight in the security industry specifically because ISC2 requires both a demanding exam and verified professional experience before granting it, which means listeners working through this material are generally already employed in the field rather than approaching security as a purely academic subject. That context shapes how the book is built: less time spent motivating why any of this matters, more time spent efficiently transmitting the actual content.
The 2015 Common Body of Knowledge this specific edition covers means listeners should verify against ISC2's current exam outline before relying on it as a sole resource, since certification bodies periodically revise domain weighting and content emphasis, and a study resource anchored to an earlier framework version can drift from current exam reality even when the underlying security concepts themselves remain broadly stable over time.
Listener reviews consistently credit that self-narration choice with real practical results. Reviewer P. Ballard reports the material “made a lot of concepts clear” and led to doing “better on practice tests,” while offering a useful calibration of scope: “expect maybe 60% depth with 90% breadth compared with the longer alternatives.” Reviewer cssserious goes further, writing that once you start listening, “things are so clearly and fluidly presented that you feel that you are actually living inside the situation, not just trying to cram something foreign and distant.”
Every Chapter Opens by Naming Itself Aloud
That “60% depth with 90% breadth” framing from P. Ballard is worth taking seriously as a genuine scope warning rather than just praise. This is explicitly built as a broad survey across every CISSP domain rather than an exhaustive deep dive into any single one, which makes it strong for building foundational fluency and dangerous to rely on as a sole, standalone study resource for the actual exam. Reviewer KLM makes a similar practical point, calling it: “A great way to augment the CISSP library”, specifically because listening works well for material “full of lists, different acronyms and definitions” that can be tedious to absorb purely through reading.
The full CISSP domain framework spans everything from security governance and risk management through cryptography, network architecture, and software development practices, an enormous breadth for any single resource to handle well. Martin's own industry background appears to inform which domains get proportionally more attention and which move faster, a judgment call that a narrator without direct security experience would have no basis for making.
The synopsis itself flags a real production quirk worth knowing about before starting: chapter titles may not display properly as descriptive names on some mobile devices, a limitation of the publishing platform rather than the content itself. Martin's fix is built directly into the audio, since every chapter opens with its title read aloud, which makes scanning back to a specific domain manageable even without relying on visible chapter names in a listening app.
At nearly seventeen hours for material described by its own listeners as breadth-focused rather than exhaustive, the pacing stays brisk relative to the sheer amount of ground covered across the full CISSP body of knowledge. This is not a leisurely listen meant to be absorbed passively during a commute; the acronym density alone rewards active attention and likely a second pass through the toughest domains, exactly as P. Ballard's review title, “Worth a listen or two”, suggests.
Narration Precise Enough to Earn Real Loyalty
The brief-by-design approach Martin describes in his own synopsis is itself a philosophy worth taking seriously rather than dismissing as a shortcut. Plenty of CISSP resources pad their runtime with exhaustive edge cases and tangential detail that experienced practitioners already know, and a resource that deliberately trims toward the essential core, while still correctly pronouncing and explaining every acronym along the way, serves a specific kind of already-competent, time-constrained candidate that longer alternatives sometimes underserve.
CISSP certification carries genuine career weight beyond passing a single exam, often functioning as a baseline requirement for more senior security roles and directly influencing compensation in a competitive field, which is part of why efficient, accurately narrated study material like this earns real loyalty from working professionals squeezing exam preparation around an existing full-time job rather than students with open-ended study time available.
Format flexibility matters for a resource this dense. Listeners can use it as primary content during a commute, as reinforcement while reviewing written notes, or as a review pass before the actual exam date, and the chapter-title-read-aloud workaround for the mobile display issue specifically supports that last use case, letting someone jump back to a particular domain for a final refresher without needing to scrub through unmarked audio.
Forty-One Ratings Averaging a Strong 4.4
A 4.4 average across forty-one ratings for a study-guide audiobook is a genuinely strong signal, since exam-prep material tends to earn ratings based on outcomes rather than entertainment value, and a consistent above-four average suggests real exam results behind the enthusiasm rather than just pleasant listening experiences.
CISSP candidates who want a fast, author-narrated survey to build foundational fluency across the entire body of knowledge before or alongside deeper study, especially auditory learners who retain lecture-style explanation better than dense reading, stand to gain the most here, particularly candidates already comfortable with basic security concepts who need the full CISSP framework organized clearly in their heads.
Candidates looking for a single, standalone, comprehensive study resource should pair this with denser reference material rather than relying on it alone, given its own listeners describe it explicitly as breadth over depth, and anyone who prefers written text for memorizing precise definitions and acronym lists may find pure audio format genuinely harder to retain than a printed study guide would be.
Questions Listeners Ask
Is this audiobook enough to pass the CISSP exam on its own?
Listeners describe it as roughly 60 percent depth with 90 percent breadth compared to longer study guides, so it works best as a foundational survey paired with denser reference material rather than a standalone resource.
Does Phil Martin narrating his own audiobook actually help the listening experience?
Yes. As both author and narrator, he pronounces every CISSP acronym and security term correctly and places emphasis where his own industry experience tells him it matters most.
Is this audiobook up to date with the current CISSP body of knowledge?
It is built on the 2015 CISSP Common Body of Knowledge from ISC2. Candidates studying for the current exam should check whether more recent updates affect their specific exam window.
Can I easily navigate between chapters in this audiobook without visible chapter titles?
Yes. While chapter names may not always display properly on mobile devices due to a platform limitation, every chapter opens by reading its own title aloud, making it easy to scan back to a specific domain.
