Passed CySA+ (barely)

I barely passed. I got 774 with minimum passing grade of 750. There were only about 75 questions, so the questions must have counted about 10 points each. I may have passed by as little as one question.

I have five other CompTIA certs (a+, net+, sec+, project+, linux+) I passed all the exams on the first try, I used self study for all. I studied far more for this exam than any other CompTIA exam.

I started with the Sybex book, but I prefered the writing style in the All-In-One book.

I studied hard, for months, I read the entire CySA+ All-in-One book. And I refereed back to it many times. I had all the book's practice questions down cold.

I also used the web, especially wikipedia, and CompTIA's outline to study in more depth than either book offered.

As I took the exam, I felt certain that I would fail. Not much looked familiar. I felt like I was totally guessing on about half of the questions. I was surprised to find I passed.

The All-in-One book did not help that much. Most of the questions were outside the scope of what was discussed in the book. The All-in-One book followed CompTIA's outline, but the exam went into more depth.

It is not an especially valuable cert. A long way to go for almost nothing.

You must be able to read and interoperate logs and output from vulnerability scanners, and utilities like tcpdump, and nmap.

You must be able to read the log, or output, and then identify the exploits or vulnerabilities. Then you need to know how to prioritize the exploits or vulnerabilities, and know how to mitigate or contain.

I consider many of the questions to be ambiguous and/or subjective.

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Comments

neonman

Congrats on the pass. It doesn't matter if you pass by one question or get 100% as a pass is a pass. So well done.

I'm thinking of taking this exam myself I know a lot of it already as I've taken and passed CCNA CyberOps and eLearnSecurity PTS exams. Along with CCNA security and CCNP R&S.

Johnhe0414

Awesome job, congrats!

SaltyHashes

I personally thought the CSA+ (before it was CySA+) was a fun exam to take due to the log files and captured packet analysis. The simulations were better than the ones in Network+ and Security+.

It's time to get off the CompTIA train and move to another vendor unless you're really needing the CASP for some reason. You have pretty much exhausted the exams that they offer.

Nice write up! Congrats on the pass.

ThePawofRizzo

I liked CySA+ (but took the beta). I really like all the CompTIA exams, and have many (and many that have long since been retired). But all of them are the basics and foundational, so one has to have that perspective.

daviddws

Congrats on the pass!

Ryan9764

Congrats!!! Do you have any exp in the IT field, that gives you an advantage on the test? Thanks.

walterbyrd

I have a lot of experience in the IT field, but not much of it was directly related to the exam.

My experience with log files was helpful. I have experience with networking including CLI utilities like ping, netstat, and nmap.

securitychops

Congrats on the pass!

AdamWashington

Congratulations on passing!!! I am getting ready to take this exam.

mrTeflon

Congrats on passing, I will be taking CySA+ in around 5 weeks, went through Jason Dion videos on udemy and now tackling CompTIA CySa+ Study Guide: Exam CS0-01 sybex book which is well worth a read.

stryder144

Congratulations on the pass. I had a job interview where that cert was pointed out as something that they were looking for. Naturally, not many know about it and that conversation was an outlier for certain, but it might be more valuable as time goes on.

remrem

Just passed the CySA+ and I can indeed recognize this "As I took the exam, I felt certain that I would fail. Not much looked familiar. I felt like I was totally guessing on about half of the questions. I was surprised to find I passed." because i was there too and survived

I used the CompTIA CySa+ Study Guide: Exam CS0-01 sybex book together with ITProTV and also played around on HackTheBox.eu.

As I already have Security+, Pentest+ & CASP, then the "new" Security Certs from CompTIA is a brilliant Addon - really like the RedTeam - BlueTeam focus that CompTIA did with Pentest+ and CySA+ - Great job on this CompTIA.

DiffieHellman173

Congratulations on the pass! What is next?

remrem

Summer Vacation

skynet1126

I passed this exam 1 year ago, failed the first time by 1 single question....but even then I thought I BOMBED it with at least half wrong. Not sure what the cert is worth in the real world, Im in Law Enforcement and dream of a career jump but dont want to take a huge paycut. So far I have every Comptia Cert available except for Cloud+ and CASP...and I have 3 Microsoft MTAs but they are worth zero. I manage the PDs computer network but its mostly helpdesk level stuff and repairing or configuring machines. I should have made the jump years ago....could have been GREAT!!

si20

skynet1126 said:

I passed this exam 1 year ago, failed the first time by 1 single question....but even then I thought I BOMBED it with at least half wrong. Not sure what the cert is worth in the real world, Im in Law Enforcement and dream of a career jump but dont want to take a huge paycut. So far I have every Comptia Cert available except for Cloud+ and CASP...and I have 3 Microsoft MTAs but they are worth zero. I manage the PDs computer network but its mostly helpdesk level stuff and repairing or configuring machines. I should have made the jump years ago....could have been GREAT!!

You've got almost every compTIA cert and you're doing helpdesk type stuff? I'm really shocked. The MTA certs are absolutely fantastic in my opinion - I didn't do the server exam but did pass the networking exam. Unfortunately they're very under-valued certs in my opinion. The IT industry is a strange one.