Passed Sec+ yesterday! Now what...

I took and passed the Sec+ exam yesterday. I am not an IT professional, I'm just an engineer, and the cert exam was offered through work as a professional skills development opportunity. My manager nominated me (after talking with me), and I was selected to take this exam, even though I had no formal training or experience in the field. I'm more of a hobbyist, with my own semi-complex network at home, including a self-hosted VPN server (OpenVPN on Raspberry Pi).

I had about 1.5 months to take the course and exam, so I took the skillsoft online lecture class that was offered through the work training portal, and then just read what I could. I read an older book covering the 301 version of the exam instead of the 401, and then I read this forum, as much as I could. You all are amazing, and this website is an amazing resource for those of us newbies and lurkers to learn from.

I passed with an 818. I'm proud of that because I was very nervous going in due to how little prep time I had.

Now I'm wondering where I go from here if I want to be a pentester. Work will offer more opportunities in the coming months. Which certs should I take when offered? Last time they offered AWS, CCNA, CEH, CISSP, and Sec+. Sec+ was the most beginner one on that list, which is why it was what I signed up for, but there's no guarantee they'll offer the same courses next time. Any thoughts?

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atippett

Do you have any networking experience? If not, I'd go CCNA. To be a good pentester you need to understand networking. Then I would go CEH, only because it is free for you and a resume boost. CEH gets downed a lot on this website. From there, I would try to ask your supervisor if they would do the OSCP for you.

Rattor

I don't have much networking experience, just what I've picked up from the IT group here at work (which admittedly is a lot more than most people in my position know). I do understand conceptually how it all works, but I don't know specific commands on how to config a firewall or things like that.

What sort of prep does the CCNA require? Same as Sec+, or is more practical experience necessary, either through work or training?

atippett

It depends really. CCNA doesn't require much hands on experience. You can use Packet Tracer and pass it. Tip: you can solve any troubleshooting question for the CCNA with the show run command. Maybe throw in a show ip interface brief every now and then. But, to answer your question, you can pick up Lammle's book and it has hands on labs after every chapter, do the labs in Packet Tracer and you'll be good. If you know the concepts already, then all you will need to study is Cisco commands and stuff related to Cisco.

p@r0tuXus

Congratulations! I'd recommend going with CCENT, then the CCNA. This will give you strong networking foundations to build on and help you work through the CEH quicker and with a better understanding. Otherwise you'll have to piece those concepts together and rather than working backward, you can progress with forward momentum.

Rattor

Thanks for the advice! I'll see if I can get on the list for the CCNA cert next.

ultm8mind

Congrats, let me know what you do next and I just may shadow you, lol...

Congrats!!

Congrats!

Congrats!

ultm8mind wrote: »

Congrats, let me know what you do next and I just may shadow you, lol...

Hah. I don't know if I'm the best to shadow on this since I have no idea and no driver to push me towards further certs, other than my own curiosity. You're welcome to follow along though

ultm8mind

I have no push right now either but it's nice to have someone else shooting for the same thing.

Rattor

It does seem like you went ahead and got a few more certs than I did. I jumped right in on the Sec+, while you got A+ and Net+ first, which is probably the way to go. But you're welcome to follow along! I'll probably start doing some research into the CCNA cert now, see what

Rattor

...see what's required to learn and pass that cert exam.