Did the CompTIA CyberSecurity Analyst+ JTA

Moldygr33nb3an

Taking the NET + Next Week and already registered for the CSA+ August 15th. I've been all over CBT nuggets and different literature. I hope it's enough.

I'm attending DEFCON 24 so hopefully I learn some things while there.

k1455123

cyberguypr wrote: »

Forgot to mention that they also gave each participant a voucher for any CompTIA exam. I chose CASP so need to get that going right after my EnCase cert.

I just took this test this morning, and I did not receive a voucher. Has anyone else gotten a voucher?

danny069

k1455123 wrote: »

I just took this test this morning, and I did not receive a voucher. Has anyone else gotten a voucher?

You don't get a voucher for taking the test, he's talking about when CompTIA paid him a stipend for his feedback for the Cybersecurity Analyst+ exam in Chicago. That's where he received a voucher for his participation.

cyberguypr

The voucher was for acting as SME for the Job Task Analysis and helping develop the exam. All you get after taking the test is a long wait until you get the results.

k1455123

Thank you, let me say this about the exam.

I studied my security+ book, and my job experience had played a role in this exam.

Some of the questions seemed extremely easy, but then some seemed harder than expected. It didnt seem to have a middle ground (maybe that is because I didnt study that much)

NunoMota

How are you guys studying for this cert? Using other cert's books/resources? Thanks!

supasecuritybro

I signed up to take it. I'm reviewing Bro and Snort now. The rest I will see if my job experience is helpful.

ThePawofRizzo

NunoMota wrote: »

How are you guys studying for this cert? Using other cert's books/resources? Thanks!

I've got Sec+, so hopefully that knowledge will help. I'm also reading CEH materials, and some CASP material as well, although I've been more focused on the CEH texts. I take it next week, so.......

Ertaz

ThePawofRizzo wrote: »

I've got Sec+, so hopefully that knowledge will help. I'm also reading CEH materials, and some CASP material as well, although I've been more focused on the CEH texts. I take it next week, so.......

I found the exam objectives to be dead-on with the actual test:

https://m.reddit.com/r/CompTIA/comments/4shohv/cybersecurity_analyst_exam_objectives/

**EDIT** I was going to point to a couple of threads on here that were more informative, but they seem to have been removed. Hrm. *Shakes fist at CompTIA*

ThePawofRizzo

Ertaz wrote: »

*Shakes fist at CompTIA*

Rage!

Doh, I had figured since it was in beta the objectives weren't on the main CompTIA page about the cert, then scrolled down a little farther....

Thanks! Looks like a lot of the CEH material covers a lot of the objectives, but I see some unique info I'll need to review as well.

FillAwful

Hey everyone,

I sat this exam this morning! I found it to be an overall excellent test.

My experience is my BS degree (heh), a few years of Dektop Support, and 1 1/2 years in a security analyst position working mostly with IDS/IPS Sensors and Splunk type data analysis.

Part of my approach was to skip the initial Simulations and return to them at the end. I found this to be a worthwhile approach.

That being said my lack of expertise with Vulnerability Scanning was a weak point for me with this test. Still, I feel as though I have a potential to pass and I absolutely feel that, should I have failed, I will be able to study my weak areas and pass on the second attempt.

Good luck to all who are attempting the beta!

spiderjericho

I take the test on Monday. Going to review the exam objectives Sat/Sun. Going to need to break out those tools lol. Not very familiar with them.

scjohnson1988

I took it on Friday. Here's my mini-review on the beta. I don't think any of this is against the NDA, as I'm not reviewing the questions, but rather the exam itself.

I studied for a few hours by touching up on the objectives and using a few of the tools. I liked the intent of the test, and I think moving forward it will be a very solid exam. I think it's a definite positive that this test had very few "what does <term> mean?" type questions and very few memorization type questions, as in my opinion, those add very little value. However, for this beta specifically (which is my first beta exam), I had a number of problems.

First, I'm not the best test taker in the world. I usually have to study for a few months, and even then, most of my scores aren't exceptional. With that said, when I took the CISSP, I had enough time to go through every answer and flag those that I wasn't 100% sure of, review/remove most of the flags on a second pass, and then go through a third time for a final review. I also took the more recent version of the CISSP that included (ISC)2's take on simulation questions. With this exam, I had less than a minute remaining when I submitted my final answer and no time at all to review. I'm an American, and I'd like to think I can read pretty quickly. To this extent though, I found myself writing a number of sentences/comments for what seemed liked 66% of the multiple choice questions. Perhaps had I had not included those, time would have not been a factor. I also had a bug with a simulation question, which caused me to lose a solid 5-10 minutes, which may very well have caused me to fail in the long run.

Here were some of the things I noticed and did not care for:
*One of my simulation questions had a bug where trying to minimize a pop-out frame would result in the question being returned back to the prompt, which was very annoying. I skipped all the simulation questions for last and focused on the multiple choice questions before doubling back to answer the simulations at the end, but I felt like I wasted a good bit of time just trying to work with the bug to provide the answer. I'm sure this will be fixed, but this also made time management even more difficult, especially when I'm doing the simulations last.
*Some of the questions and answers used shorthand formats of terms. By shorthand, I mean acronyms that aren't truly acronyms and that are not listed in the exam objectives. I think it is very poor form to use shorthand in any official document, especially a test.
*I found myself struggling with what I felt like SHOULD be the right answer versus what the question asked. For example, one of the questions may have had a long winded question that ended with "which of these choices prevents xxxxxx from occurring"? To me, there may have been a better answer, but the question included the term "prevent", and to prevent something has a very specific meaning to it. I kept jumping back and forth between common sense and reading the question in a literal manner. Obviously, this is an example, but I found this to be a very common problem where more concise proofreading and diction would have been a huge help for someone like me that struggles on exams.
*There were a few questions relating to topics that were on the objectives at all. This isn't a big deal in the beta, but it would've been nice to have a refresher on those terms.
*There were a few questions where from my real life work experience, I knew that the answer they wanted me to select was actually not the correct answer. I work in the DoD, so it may be subjective, but I don't think any questions should have this level of ambiguity.
*I felt that about 33% of the test questions in the realm of 2-3 objective points, which coincidentally aren't my strong suit. I'm assuming that the score will be weighted based on the percentages listed in the objectives, but even then, I could see how some of those questions may bleed into multiple categories. It would have been nice to see a slightly more diverse number of questions based on the objectives.

In the end, I'm pretty confident I won't end up passing, but I don't regret taking it for $50 it either. It's gnawing not knowing I passed or failed, as I haven't failed any exams yet. It's also sort of irksome that as soon as I walked out of the test, I know I missed at least 3 questions that I would've gotten correct had I had the time to review my flagged questions. Regardless, the beta helped identify a few areas I need to improve on, and I think that alone is a positive to take away from this exam. I'm not necessarily sure I like how this is being marketed as a middle tier exam between Sec+ and CASP. As I have both Sec+ and CASP, I think this should be marketed independently towards professionals actively working in security roles with specialized questions/objectives, while Sec+ and CASP are more general security topics that cover a wider breadth of topics. I'm also assuming the DoD 8140 Manual will release not too long after this exam, and that this exam will probably become more valuable in the DoD community in 3-4 years.

NetworkNewb

scjohnson1988 wrote: »

*One of my simulation questions had a bug where trying to minimize a pop-out frame. I skipped all the simulation questions for last and focused on the multiple choice questions before returning, but I felt like I wasted a good bit of time just trying to work with the bug to provide the answer. I'm sure this will be fixed, but this also made time management even more difficult, especially when I'm doing the simulations last.

I remember that one. That was definitely a little annoying...

Ertaz

NetworkNewb wrote: »

I remember that one. That was definitely a little annoying...

I thought that was just me not clicking something correctly. Lol.

jeremywatts2005

I am going to attempt the beta on Friday morning. Crossing fingers it goes good. I took CASP as a beta and got destroyed on it even though I have years of experience. I figured for $50 I would give it a shot. BTW what happened to the free BETA?

baldnbeardd

According to CompTIA, this test may or may not include questions about Wireshark, Bro and/or Snort, and AlienVault Open Source SIEM (OSSIM) with Open Threat Exchange [OTX]). I just signed up for the beta test on Aug 31. Currently hold Sec+ only.

Itrimble

I signed up to take it on Saturday the 13th. I wonder how I'll do.

dizzy_kitty

I signed up to take this exam on August 22nd, the day before my last semester for my B.A. in CybSec begins. I also have my Security+. A bit nervous and contemplating whether or not I should push it back a month and try to study for this while juggling 3 classes and work. If I do take it on the 22nd I'll post my experience here.

NorrisMcWherter

I tried to schedule for this (UK), but no test centre can deliver it here. They should make it obvious it's US only.

PJ_Sneakers

That was a great test. Very enjoyable!

Ertaz

PJ_Sneakers wrote: »

That was a great test. Very enjoyable!

Agreed. Pass or fail for me, it was a good evaluation of skills. I have no doubt that I would be able to nail it with some targeted study materials.

scjohnson1988

jeremywatts2005 wrote: »

I am going to attempt the beta on Friday morning. Crossing fingers it goes good. I took CASP as a beta and got destroyed on it even though I have years of experience. I figured for $50 I would give it a shot. BTW what happened to the free BETA?

If I'm remembering correctly, they started charging $50 for the Server+ beta exam as well. Perhaps even before then. I don't like the idea of charging for a beta myself, as I did have bugs during the exam.

tom564

I took it in the UK, they may of stopped new registrations if it's hit the cap

9bits

For someone who's only done Security+, and who's done minimal vulnerability scanning, would those who have taken the exam say it's worth the $50?

PJ_Sneakers

I mean, I guess it's worth it if you pass? This test will be a great addition to CompTIA's lineup if it takes off and gains popularity. I think it does fit nicely in between Security+ and CASP.

9bits

PJ_Sneakers wrote: »

I mean, I guess it's worth it if you pass? This test will be a great addition to CompTIA's lineup if it takes off and gains popularity. I think it does fit nicely in between Security+ and CASP.

Yeah, the probability of passing is what I'm trying to gauge. If there's a low to nil probability of passing, then I don't want to spend the money.

PJ_Sneakers

I felt the "difficulty" was around the same as CEH (maybe a bit harder), if that helps. It did stick to the exam objectives pretty well. I felt it was very aligned with the "cybersecurity analyst" title of the certification

spiderjericho

PJ_Sneakers wrote: »

I mean, I guess it's worth it if you pass? This test will be a great addition to CompTIA's lineup if it takes off and gains popularity. I think it does fit nicely in between Security+ and CASP.

I think the issue is industry acceptance and demand. Still don't see much demand for CASP. They got it thrown on the DoD 8570/8140 but outside of that, what is the ROI versus say CISSP (which are different certifications admittedly)?

PJ_Sneakers

No, that's a very valid point. It all depends on marketing I suppose. We've all seen CompTIA retire exams that were outdated or not widely accepted.