Comptia Security+ Certification

[Star*Bucks]

Hello, I have a job offer with higher pay over what I earn now waiting for me and all I need to do is get the Security+ certification. I have several questions here for anyone who is in the this field.

First was the Security+ Cert difficult to pass? How long did you study before taking the exam and what study material did you go with? I am currently not in tech and I am excited and scared at the same time at the idea. The job I do now is easy reliable and I could do it 20 more years without blinking an eye, but this new job will get me a immediate pay boost of 30-40% which means I will actually earn about the same amount of money as I make now annually but will do so only working a 40 hour workweek instead of the 60 hours on average I do now.

What is the day to day like for someone who has a security+ cert? This question may be too broad and I’m sure will depend on several factors. The guy that offered me the job said I’ll probably be wobbly for the first 2 months before I get comfortable. This was great to hear because that means they expect for me to take some time to learn and find out what is expected of me. Any other input you may have would greatly be appreciated! This first step may be an opening to get deeper into the tech field and get that remote job I always wanted.

[IlliniDave]

Certain jobs adjacent to mine before I retired required it in order to have admin privileges on some networks. My coworkers who had it for their assignments tended to roll their eyes at it as it was just a credential they had to get that didn't have any bearing on their actual jobs. They were just hands on managers of networks who needed root privileges to do their job, which was generally things like installing software, creating accounts, and performing maintenance.

The consensus was that it was by far the easiest and most expedient to take a course in it and pay attention because the course essentially is a how to take the test and geared towards whatever iteration of the test they took at the end of the course. It may be of some technical value to someone whose job deals directly with protecting networks (was not the case among my former colleagues, they just kept them running). I actually downloaded a study guide from my former employer's eLibrary and studied a good chunk of it. Somewhat interesting and just tangential enough to my job I was able to use it to fill in some mandatory work-from-home time during the pandemic.

[squirrel]

^^ Absolutely correct. As for preparing, I used Jason Dion's Udemy course and passed on the first attempt. I studied 6 days/week for 1-2 hours, and it took me around 30 days from starting the course to passing the exam. If you can score an 80 on Dion's practice exams, I think you are ready to take the exam.

It's great to hear that your boss expects a break-in period. If you will be working in a SOC, passing the exam will not be enough to jump in and work independently. You'll be learning on the job! Which is all good, most security jobs (especially at the entry level) are like that.

[CDR]

First was the Security+ Cert difficult to pass? How long did you study before taking the exam and what study material did you go with?

I wrote CompTIA's A+ and Network+ Certs, I never bothered to get the Security+, so I cannot speak on it specifically, but most of the resources I used have a Security+ equivalent.

• Professor Messer's video course (free!) https://www.professormesser.com
• Exam Cram https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Exam+Cram+Security (check to see if your local library has it before buying)
• Exam Compass (free practice tests!) https://www.examcompass.com/comptia/sec ... tice-tests
• I also used an additional Exam Cram book that was only practice tests, but they do not have an equivalent for the Security+, although their Sec+ book might come with access to an online quizzing platform or something.
• Jason Dion's A+ practice tests only (separate from buying the entire course), I have mix feelings about their quality (lots of spelling mistakes and etc) but I used it, so I should mention it.

My notes say I studied for 1 month and two weeks before taking The A+ Core 1 and at the time I felt it was at least one more week than I needed. I was working full time, but it was during COVID. I studied between 1 to 2 hours a day.

I do not have notes on my opinion of the A+ Core 2 and Network+ but I can see from when I booked the tests:

A+ Core 2 - 25 days (between the day I wrote the Core 1 and the day I wrote the Core 2)
Network+ - 150 days (between the day I wrote the Core 2 and the Network+, but I can see I bought the exam and study material on November 1, so it is likely that I took a break between the Core 2 and Network+, but who knows).

I would say the content on the A+ and Network+ were not difficult, and looking over the Sec+ I don't think it is any more difficult. In my experience the content wasn't hard to grasp, you just have to do the work of going through a course and learning it all.

If I was you, I would take one practice test on Exam Compass per the exam specifications (with a timer, no books or Google) before starting any studying, and based on the results of the exam start studying from your worse category to best, and once finished, take as many practice tests under simulated conditions as you can.

I am currently not in tech and I am excited and scared at the same time at the idea. The job I do now is easy reliable and I could do it 20 more years without blinking an eye, but this new job will get me a immediate pay boost of 30-40% which means I will actually earn about the same amount of money as I make now annually but will do so only working a 40 hour workweek instead of the 60 hours on average I do now.

I was previously working in Public Relations and getting the A+ and Network+ let me get my first tech job. It was a 50% pay raise (although I was working in the non-profit sector so you know), permanent work from home, and actual benefits. The only downside was rotating shifts in my case, but overall it was worth it to switch to tech. I was promoted within the same company this year and I am back to regular working hours, with more pay.

The first tech job I was in was also easy/reliable, excluding the shift changes, but I am glad I took the promotion, while somewhat emotionally disturbing, it is great to no longer be comfortable in my position and to have to learn new things everyday again.

If you are going to be transitioning into CyberSecurity, it is a huge growth field that desperately needs workers so it is probably going to serve you well!

[candide]

I want to add a nod to Professor Messer. I too am studying for Comptia A+ to try to expand my options and plan to do Security+.

I tried to make books the pace-setter, but all the ones I tried seemed to have the problem of building the current edition upon all of the old material in such a way that causes confusion about how things are currently done. I kept going down rabbit holes that led to "oh, and no system does this any more." There is a giant book by a man named Mike Meyers [1], and he tries to treat this bug as a feature by saying he is giving you a broader context like you are the learning the lore of an experienced technician, which is fine but would put me behind the pace that I keep seeing as possible to pass the exam. Worse, a cram guide published in 2023 had me fundamentally confused, as a paragraph that must have been a hold-over from an older edition made it seem like the world was still using 2G protocols extensively. There is too much adding on, not enough re-writing in these books.

The Professor Messer videos do a much better job of framing things up, so you know what is the legacy tech and what is the current practice. His script is just better than any other I have tried. My current study procedure here for the 1st core is to watch the Messer videos on an objective first, then still read the cram guide and take its quiz. Next, I use an LLM (I've moved over to the ones on Duckduckgo, highly recommended) to help me generate anki cards. After I get done with the objectives, I will hit those practice exams. Thanks to @CDR for all of those resources.

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Update. I passed Core 1 today. I would recommend getting some exposure to PBQs/simulations. I would watch this playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIicr4K ... iW&index=3

As well as this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zh2giDoKWI

Let's just say I think some people might not have followed the non-disclosure agreement, and you can get a good .

Lastly, I recommend and used CompTIA A+ Practice Test Core 1 (220-1101) by Ian Neil. Some of his questions are total bullshit and based on knowing hyper-specific things about certain vendors, which did not show up on the exam, but some the question that aren't like that fill in gaps in the Professor Messer videos, and some of those ideas did show up on my exam.

So my new way forward through CompTIA exams will be to watch the Messer videos, then use books by Ian Neil as my post test, putting misses and new ideas into Anki. Then I will use ExamCompass as my cumulative practice.


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[1] TIL the comedian and fictional serial killer's last name are spelled differently.