Hi, everyone. My name is Chester Kenrick.
And let me tell you a little bit about myself.
I have a phd in information technology
with an emphasis on information system security.
A masters in cybersecurity and MB A
plus a ton of experience with 25 years,
hands on experience in information technology,
cybersecurity and telecommunications.
I also have been teaching for the last five years,
both in academia and boot camp courses that specifically go
into exam like the one you're gonna take today.
I possess the SYS, the CYS A and the security Plus certifications.
You may be asking yourself why should I take the CYS A plus exam?
Cys A is an intermediate certification,
meaning you should already have foundational
knowledge in cybersecurity and security related
fields with certifications such as security plus already under your belt.
You should know that CYS A is considered to
be a level 2D OD 8570 industry recognized certification,
meaning that you can go through the process and already be qualified
for level two of the fields for government jobs related to cybersecurity.
Unlike other vendor specific certifications,
CYSA is vendor neutral.
It doesn't have a specific recommendation for a
specific technology or manufacturer tied to it.
Vendor neutrality means that it goes through all the entire process.
Understanding that cybersecurity is about cybersecurity
and not related to one specific technology
cys A provides you for the foundational
knowledge in order to progress your careers.
Maybe you imagine yourself in a career
as cybersecurity analysts going through and identifying
threats and providing the appropriate acknowledgment for
those threats and responding to those incidents.
Maybe you're imagining yourself in a different
career such as an incident response analyst
where cybersecurity analyst goes in ID,
find the threat.
Maybe you want to be the actual person that goes and responds to that threat,
locking down systems, identifying how they got in and where to stop them.
Maybe your key idea is application security analysts going through the different
web applications or the different programming
and developments that come into play,
identifying where those weaknesses vul
ail are and how to properly protect against them.
You may be asking yourself what's the difference
between security plus versus CYS A when security Plus
already gives you that foundational knowledge in cybersecurity that
you may already be accustomed to or already possess
while comptia
security plus provides you a foundational knowledge of cybersecurity concepts.
Cys A provides you with an analyst or an incident response behavior.
This means that our focus isn't so much on the basic concepts,
but the intermediate knowledge that comes with being an analyst and understanding
how to properly respond to specific
incidents that impede upon your infrastructure.
The different roles associated with security plus are more on the security side,
network administration,
system administrator or foundational positions that while their
entry level do go into specific cybersecurity positions,
the job rules associated with CYS A plus are more
in line with advanced rules such as an analyst position,
whether it's with a vulnerability or even threat.
Intelligence
security plus is relatively accessible to most individuals
with limited knowledge with pure foundational knowledge.
Whereas CYS A is considered to be a little bit more challenging,
understanding logs and how to read those logs,
the different incidents associated with it,
how to read vulnerabilities and what the proper
procedures are to shore up those vulnerabilities.
The exam structure and both are similar
in case security plus is multiple choice with
performance based questions and you're gonna see relatively
the same structure within CYS A plus.
The exam duration for security plus is only 90 minutes.
However, cys A gives you almost three hours at 165 minutes.
Security plus is more networkd driven.
It provides access control and foundational knowledge of Cryptography,
risk and incident response and how the overall flare
within cybersecurity really is at a truly foundational level.
However, cys A covers things like threat and vulnerability management,
security operations and monitoring, incident response,
seam and soar and as well as compliance and assessment of
the different incidents associated with
specifically with your network security.
Plus is more of an entry level role,
providing you with positions that truly are limited experience to no experience
in a cybersecurity foundational role.
However, cys A prepares you for more advanced role,
excelling your career in the terms of cybersecurity to some key roles and positions
to really and truly understand cybersecurity at a
level that security plus just doesn't offer.
Comptia
recommends that you have four years of
hands on experience in information security role,
maybe incident response or even security operations.
They also recommend that you have network plus or
an equivalent certification as well as security plus.
I sort of disagree with this recommendation.
In my personal opinion,
you should have security plus already hand
and understand the foundational understanding of cybersecurity.
Security plus or an equivalent certification would be a great rule
or great certification to have before starting the of course.
However, I recommend that you start your cys a immediately after security plus,
a lot of that foundational knowledge is going to peer right into
the cys A objectives and truly prepare you to pass that exam.
I don't necessarily think that you need those four years of hands on experience.
That doesn't mean that you shouldn't have hands
on experience or understand how to read logs.
I'm not saying that,
but what I am saying is that security plus is a great entry level certification.
However, I would start studying for CYS A immediately after
let's explore the specific exam domains associated with CYS A plus. Right now,
cys A makes up four distinct domains with each one
having a percentage weighted scale within the exam itself.
For instance, domain one, security operations makes up 33% of the exam
security vulnerability management. 30% isn't a response and management.
20% reporting and communication. A mere 17%.
All these total, the exam weighted domain of 100%
in domain one, we're going to cover security operations such as log ingestion.
We're gonna hit some tools such as Wireshark, virustotal
sandbox. We're going to talk about file hashing and Exxon LLL programming.
We're gonna cover thread,
hunting and threat intelligence sharing as well as tactics,
techniques and procedures.
In domain two. We're going to talk about vulnerability management.
We're going to discuss map tools, finger device fingerprinting.
We're gonna talk about device buggers, angry IP scanner, Maltego,
we're going to cover different attack vectors and cross-site scripting,
how it differs from buffer overflows and heap stacking.
We're also going to explain different concepts such as risk management,
compliances, threat modeling and attack surface management
and 3.0 we're going to talk about incident
response and management such as cyber kill chains,
the minor attack methodology and framework.
We're also going to cover IO CS and incident response plans,
playbooks and business continuity versus disaster recovery.
In domain four.
We're going to talk about reporting and
communication and decide why it's so important
to actually use those reporting mechanisms we're
gonna talk about patching and configuration management.
We're going to talk about communications from legal to public relations all the
way to different law enforcement and regulatory
reporting requirements throughout the entire exam,
we're going to cover in depth every last one
of these domains and talk about the knowledge units.
You need to pass the CYS A plus exam.
Our course follows closely along with the
book pictured here as you're going through.
If you're looking for a companion source or resource for this course,
mcgraw Hill Cys A course book is one that I would highly recommend.
Pictured here.
You can see the chapter guide specifically with the
domain coverage that we utilize throughout the course.
You'll notice that domains are not covered on a case by case
basis exactly as the domains depicted for the CYS A exam.
This is on purpose.
Our course structure is designed to give you the highest reflection
of your knowledge and the most easily retainable format.
And that's why we follow the chapters provided below.
Here,
you can see the book chapters which correspond with the Videocore
structure as well as the exam objectives covered in each chapter.
You will notice that some of the exam objectives are out of order.
This is done intentionally to ensure foundational knowledge
and retain ability of the information provided.
Here,
you can see the book chapters with correspond with the videocore
structure as well as the exam objectives covered in each chapter.
You will notice some of the exam objectives are out of order.
This is done intentionally to ensure foundation knowledge
and retain ability of the information provided.
This will be available to you as a resource,
as well as a map identifying the exam objectives.
Now that we've talked about everything that's included within this course.
Let's talk about how to set up and prepare for your exam.