Registered for PenTest+! Who else registered?

Tonight, I registered for the CompTIA PenTest+ beta exam. I will take it on April 2, 2018, exactly one week after I take the ISC2 CSSLP exam.

I took two beta exams before, one with CompTIA (Cloud+) and another with Oracle (Java programming). I did not pass the latter exam (later, I took the non-beta exam and passed), and I have yet to receive word on whether I passed the Cloud+ beta exam.

Are you going to take the PenTest+ beta exam too?

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

trojin

Just registered for 10th Feb

aliasilyas

Registered for 12th March, my first beta exam.

stryder144

I registered for 21 April. This will be my third beta exam. I also saw that they will be releasing another beta exam, for IT Fundamentals, that I might take (for grins).

meni0n

14 April, best study material would be CEH books I guess?

PersianImmortal

Just signed up for March 26th!

ThePawofRizzo

Just signed up for April! Thanks for posting. I figured the beta exam wouldn't be opening for a while, so I would have missed it.

EnderWiggin

Signed up for Monday. No point waiting, gonna go have some fun!

bjpeter

meni0n wrote: »

14 April, best study material would be CEH books I guess?

Good idea. I will read the AIO book to prepare!

owieczka_ma

I have just signed up for 17th of April. I am going to use CEH (AIO + Sybex) books to prepare for this exam. That would actually help me to finally start prepping to CEH exam I planned for this year.

That would be also my second CompTIA's BETA exam. Previous BETA one - Server+ - was quite of "walk in the park" taking into consideration my on the job experience.
Let's see how it goes this time ...

Eston21

I'm registered as well. Looking forward to the challenge.

jaso

Decided to try it, especially for the price...

. Last time I missed the Server+ Beta exam by a week or so.

atippett

Scheduled for Feb 6th, gonna give it a shot cold turkey since it's so cheap. Let's see what happens!

globalenjoi

Has anyone managed to find the exam objectives for this? I registered for Feb 6th, and since I just passed GPEN last month I figure I could use my SANS material to refresh. But I've tried to use the registration link on the CompTIA website to get the objectives to focus the last-minute cram studying, and it just keeps failing. Feel like I might be missing something obvious...

Alternatively, anyone that has taken CEH and passed, what would you recommend studying for this? I've never prepped for that exam, so I don't own the AIO book or anything. Just SANS GPEN material and the Penetration Testing book by Georgia Weidman.

walterbyrd

I registered for April 19th.

I do not expect to pass.

It's only $50. At least I will get a good look at the exam.

I am already studying for the CSA+. That should cover parts of the PenTest+. I will study some additional stuff.

But again, I don't expect to pass - CompTIA exam questions have become so off-the-wall it's hard to even understand them when you do study for a specific exam.

meni0n

Here are the objectives;

https://certification.comptia.org/docs/default-source/exam-objectives/comptia-pentest-exam-objectives-(2-0).pdf

SteveLavoie

When I learned it, I wanted to register for the Beta. But now, I am thinking that it will distract me from my 2018 objective only to save 200$-300$ (and the money don't come from my pocket).

jeremywatts2005

March 20th for me

globalenjoi

meni0n wrote: »

Here are the objectives;

https://certification.comptia.org/docs/default-source/exam-objectives/comptia-pentest-exam-objectives-(2-0).pdf

Thanks for posting this, I've been using it as a guide for the last couple nights. I'll say though, I'm a bit worried. Official info on the CompTIA website has "Network+, Security+ or equivalent knowledge. Minimum of 2-3 years of hands-on information security or related experience" as the recommended experience, and says you won't know if you pass until summer. Yet the objectives page says "3 –4 years of hands-on experience performing penetration tests, vulnerability assessments, and vulnerability management" and has a passing score of 750. That's a bit of a difference there, and I definitely don't have 3-4 years of experience.

K-9

Signed up. This will be my third CompTIA beta. I have no idea what to really study, but these are always a roll of the dice. I watched CEH v8 videos over a weekend to study for the CSA (now CySA) beta and passed. The PenTest+ objectives are pretty wide-ranging, but that has little relation to the actual questions we will face on the exam. I won't have time to study anything special for this test given that I have other obligations.

atippett

Just got done with the Beta exam. I will say, it was more difficult then I thought it would be. It blows the CEH out of the water. CEH level knowledge will only get you about 30-40% on this exam. Although I don’t have pentesting experience, my work experience is in defensive cyber operations so I figured I would’ve done better than I did. You will have to know the tools in depth, and how they work. Scripting knowledge and being able to read code is a must. All in all, it is a difficult exam and will likely put the CEH out of business when this certification becomes popular. If I don’t pass when the results come back, this a certification I will absolutely pursue when it comes out of Beta.

Some notes: you don’t get a numbered score at the end of the exam like previously thought. You can only take the Beta 1 time. Simulations and multiple choice. 110 total questions.

globalenjoi

Took this exam this morning after studying the objectives over the weekend... I should have studied more! This ended up being much more difficult than I thought. I took the GPEN in December and this felt quite a bit different. While I was very confident with the GPEN, this one shook me a bit. I was a bit side-swiped by how heavy it was on scripting, especially with Perl and Python. It makes sense, but I wasn't expecting the challenge from the CompTIA exam. I haven't ever taken the CEH, but I've looked at the exam material, and this one definitely seems superior.

However, I'll still say the CompTIA simulation questions are garbage. I absolutely hate their "lab" questions because of the test environment/computers. You're stuck with something displaying at 800x600, and everything has a scroll bar. It's just so... uncomfortable.

K-9

The PDF outline doesn't mention Perl. It states "limited to Bash, Python, Ruby, and PowerShell)" Also, the PDF outline lists a zillion pen testing tools. No way anyone could be proficient with all of them. Sounds like they might have to grade on a curve and go back to the item writing exercises?

JDMurray

There are still PenTest+ slots available at this moment. I just signed up for March 15th. I'm interested to see if this is truly CompTIA's Hacking+ exam.

Now to take a few crash-courses on basic scripting to try and remember what I've forgotten...

PJ_Sneakers

globalenjoi wrote: »

However, I'll still say the CompTIA simulation questions are garbage. I absolutely hate their "lab" questions because of the test environment/computers. You're stuck with something displaying at 800x600, and everything has a scroll bar. It's just so... uncomfortable.

YES! I hate testing PC's. I always feel like I'm using a library computer from 1998.

NEODREAM

Sat for this on Tuesday (2/6), and to echo everyone else in this thread it was definitely tougher than expected. The objectives PDF definitely gives a good indicator of the things you should be familiar with (scripting, tools, identifying vulns, etc.).

All in all it was a fun test! Excited for the results this summer!

shochan

globalenjoi wrote: »

However, I'll still say the CompTIA simulation questions are garbage. I absolutely hate their "lab" questions because of the test environment/computers. You're stuck with something displaying at 800x600, and everything has a scroll bar. It's just so... uncomfortable.

Totally agree with you...The simulations on the Cloud+ beta were horrible too. Having several popup boxes to shift back & forth on one screen was difficult & time consuming...Why can't they just try to fit it into one screen if the test centers don't have dual screens? ok, off the soapbox. CHEERS!

GeekyChick

So are there any benefits to taking a beta exam besides the price being so low? I'm assuming they will evaluate the exam results and determine what's a passing/failing grade. If you have a passing grade from the beta I guess you get the cert?? If you fail do they give you a discount on the official exam? Will CompTIA then adjust/change their official exam based on what the outcome of this is? I'm just curious how this works.

EnderWiggin

GeekyChick wrote: »

So are there any benefits to taking a beta exam besides the price being so low? I'm assuming they will evaluate the exam results and determine what's a passing/failing grade. If you have a passing grade from the beta I guess you get the cert?? If you fail do they give you a discount on the official exam? Will CompTIA then adjust/change their official exam based on what the outcome of this is? I'm just curious how this works.

The benefit to me is I enjoy taking the beta, because I can actually provide input on the exam. They do evaluate the results and make changes as necessary, then determine how to weight everything. Based on that, if you passed, you get the cert.

_nessie_

I guess you only have access to the beta exams if you have obtained a Comptia cert before?

GeekyChick

EnderWiggin wrote: »

The benefit to me is I enjoy taking the beta, because I can actually provide input on the exam. They do evaluate the results and make changes as necessary, then determine how to weight everything. Based on that, if you passed, you get the cert.

Yes, good point. Not all benefits should be just for one's self. Although....if you could pass it for $50 that would be sweet.