Hey guys! It's me again! After some thought and consideration, I'd love to share my notes/study guide that I used to pass the Security+ exam! I've had a friend who used my study guide as a resource say it really helped me pass the exam as well! So might as well give it to the community and help future exam takers as well, or may I say the future Security+ certified!

For everyone who asked from the last post, here you go!

Ultimate CompTIA SY0-701 Security+ Study Guide

It's all organized per lesson! Each lesson has a heading where under each lesson has a topic, and under each topic has the chapters!

I enabled bookmarks for easier navigation as well! There's also a Table of Content where if you click on the page numbers, it takes you directly there!

Enjoy everyone and happy studying! I hope it helps!

Hi all,

What is the best approach to studying and preparing for the security+ exam? I prefer videos to reading books and retain better that way.

Also, how long will the exam prep approximately take?

This is the study guide that I created to pass and help others pass the Sec+.

Main DocumentPublished:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQ6Yr440loG9ubZ5m5-UYUAtBA2v5e7Ac4OAT5KUsPLnuXPq2P_gsRtGpc_k9Av-g/pub

Main Document Sharing:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XqZeBOM6JeR83Nce-k9aUkAZQV2denWs/view?usp=sharing

Editable Version:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xc15TCT9HxYTCEACsE_pr1gqGQGjSjd5/view?usp=sharing

The guide is a comprehensive guide of:

1.0 Threats, Attacks and Vulnerabilities, 21% of the test.

2.0 Technologies and Tools, 22% of the test.

3.0 Architecture and Design, 15% of the test.

4.0 Identity and Access Management, 16% of the test.

6.0 Cryptography and PKI, 12% of the test.

It is missing section 5.0 Risk Management (14% of the test) because unfortunately, I broke my hand and cannot type it up.

Best of luck to everyone taking the test, and have a great new year.

Edit: I added an editable version for those having issues. Thanks for all the kind words and support.

Edit 2: Fixed the sharing properties of the files and added a published version of the main document.

Hi, I’m about to complete my Google Cybersecurity course on Coursera, and I plan to take the Security+ certification before my knowledge fades. However, I’m unsure which study materials would be easy to understand and self-explanatory for a beginner like me. I have no prior IT background, and this cybersecurity course is my first exposure to the field. That said, I’m really enjoying it and want to dive deeper into cybersecurity.

Any recommendations for beginner-friendly Security+ study resources, including YouTube channels, study material links, or online study websites, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

I’m getting ready to buy a study guide and practice exams books and would like to know which are the best ones to buy? I prefer books over ebooks because it’s easier for me to reference and markup. Thanks for your help.

I passed Security+ today with 842/900, and in the process of studying I took a lot of notes. Sixty pages of notes, actually.

With a background in content creation and excessive note-taking, my notes came out pretty well. There are a few comedic swears in them, and a few anecdotes, and I may have skimmed some sections, but I think it could really help a lot of people studying for the test.

About The Guide

The study guide was prepared very heavily using Darril Gibson's textbook, and is not meant to replace it as a full study resource. Instead, I recommend reading his book, and using this study guide to help you organize and review the information.

Why are there two versions?

Funny you should ask that, actually. I decided that some people would like a really simplified, clean-cut view of all the material, and that is the original uneditable guide. I skimped on a lot of detail, really highlighted the most essential points, etc.

But I know people are different than me, so I also have a link to the editable guide, which I'm hoping the community will work together to flesh out. You can add notes, highlights, comments, details, or whatever you want to it. Maybe we'll crowdsource a whole new, more thorough textbook.

Community Edited Security+ Study Guide

Uneditable, Original Security+ Study Guide

PS: I have a /lot/ of notes applying to Network+ as well, though they are less cleanly organized. It's a much more difficult test, and similarly was harder to structure my notes for. If there is interest, I would be willing to upload them either as-is, or actually edit them together into something nicer. Comment below if that's something you all would like to see.

EDIT: Due to high demand, I've put together my Network+ guide as well. I'm a little embarrassed to share it in the shape its in, as the formatting is a little nuts and the sections are NOT well organized. I will be updating it through the holidays most likely, and just like with Security+, I will upload two versions, one that can be edited by the community, and one that cannot.

Second Edit!! First ever reddit gold! Thanks guys!

Community Edited Network+ Study Guide

Uneditable Network+ Study Guide

Passed on my first try today with a score of 810. Took the full 90 minutes and frankly did not feel confident at all when I finished. I only used free study materials, and out of those compiled my own study guide:

https://github.com/IanKuzmik/comptia_securityPlus_701

The data is formatted into Python objects, and I included a simple quiz script to 'gamify' it. If you know a little Python, it should be easy to modify/extend. If you don't know any Python or how to run Python scripts, this will be a pseudo-related great learning experience.

Thoughts on the exam:

My background is in programming; I was very ignorant to networking when I started studying. I took about 5-6 weeks, mostly learning basic stuff like 'What is a network switch?' or 'How do block cyphers work?'. The final week I just did/watched practice tests.

In hindsight, I probably focused too much on protocol technicals, and not enough on general frameworks. I felt unprepared for questions like 'What stage of the forensic investigation does this correspond to?' or 'What step of the Incident Response Plan do this refer to?'

Despite a few questions where I wished a had a better handle on definitions, the exam felt less like a test on security+ content, and more like a critical reading test that assumes you know security+ content.

Resources used:

Professor Messer, CyberKraft, and Inside Cloud and Security were my primary go-to's on Youtube, but I pretty much watched any free practice question videos I could find. Credit to all content creators who post free content; thank you all for doing the lord's work.

I Took 4 Certpreps free 701 practice exams. I consistently scored between 75-80% on these. Probably the closest experience to the actual exam (minus PBQ's), but slightly harder.

https://certpreps.com/secplus/

I also found Examcompass mini practice tests. I scored better on these

https://www.examcompass.com/comptia/security-plus-certification/free-security-plus-practice-tests

Reddit was great for questions like, "what's the difference between RADIUS and TACACS+?"

I hope this helps you on your certification journey! I appreciate all the other posts here that helped me

Hey everyone, I'm asking if you guys could provide me to the best study materials to pass the CompTIA Security+ exam. I am new to cybersecurity but, I do have experience with programming..

Thank you!!

I have heard bad things about comptia study material and that they set u up to fail to take ur money but so far the book seems good i also have the get certified get ahead book to fill in gaps if this book does actually lack info

So I recently got the Get Certified Get Ahead book which I’m planning on using as my main source for studying and after finishing it I’m gonna go onto watching the Professor Messer videos on youtube but I’m kinda stuck. I was never really a book study typa guy throughout highschool so in basic terms I should say I don’t know how to study with a book properly.

My questions are

Should I just highlight what I find important, Do I write terms in my own words on a piece of paper or will that make things more difficult, at what pace should I be reading through chapters, and what should my main focus be?

Also if anyone has any suggestions about ways to go about studying for the exam that’s different feel free to comment.

As someone who has been reading every single "I Passed!" post on here I'm super excited to finally be making one myself. With that being said I'm going to try to make this post as informational as some of the ones that I read that really motivated me and gave me some kind of assurance about this scary exam. It's gonna be long.. Lets do it:

My Test

• 80 multiple choice and 5 PBQ

• I passed with a score of 788 (750 required to pass)

• I took it at a PearsonVUE Test Center instead of at home because:

  • I read horror stories of rude proctors failing people for stupid reasons

  • My room is probably too cluttered.. I have other systems and pets in here

  • I felt like the environment at a test center would put me "in the zone" or be less distracted (This was so true! Getting ready and physically leaving the house really put me in a good mindset for testing)

• I skipped the PBQ's like everyone says to

• I had 20 minutes of time left over to check my answers

• The survey at the end felt like eternity

So when I woke up on exam day, I had a feeling that I could fail. I was only scoring 70-75 on my practice exams the day before which was really discouraging. I started gaining confidence once I was taking the exam though. Most people say that while they're taking the exam they felt like they were failing, but I was kind of gaining confidence with each question that I felt I knew the correct answer. I'd say there was only like 5 multiple choice questions that I just couldn't figure out and I only felt confident on 4/5 PBQ's (I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share what the simulations were due to the candidate agreement, but I definitely remember all of them and can say I had no idea how to do ONE of them. I definitely failed that one)

My Studies

First I want to say one important thing: Use multiple sources for material (I cant tell you how much content Gibson touched that Messer didn't, or Messer did but Gibson didn't.. if that makes sense.) and multiple methods of ingesting it. For example, I WATCHED hours and hours of videos, I READ from multiple sources, and I LISTENED in the car.

I had to study for quite a long time because I haven't worked in cybersecurity or IT or gone to school for any of this. So I'll have to go pretty far back on my study timeline in the order that I used them.

• Mike Meyers A+ Udemy Course & Book (yep I said A+)

  • This was my first form of studying about a year ago. I was originally planning to get my A+ until a great friend showed me the DoD Approved 8570 Baseline Certifications. Basically after learning from him that the security+ is superior and even a baseline for the DoD I started focusing on that instead.

• Mike Meyers Security+ Udemy Course

  • This course helped me become familiar with new concepts like cryptography and PKI that I've never heard of before. I also didn't know very much about networking. This course was overall really helpful for acclimating me to the TONS of material in Security+.

• Professor Messer

  • Because his videos are on YouTube it's really easy to throw it on the TV while cleaning the house. I watched through this entire series twice. The first time just chilling and following along, the second time I followed along while reading his course notes. I highly recommend printing these out on a spiral binder from office depot (or buy his physical copy but this saves like 20 bucks).

• Quizlet Flash Cards - There are some things on the exam that don't feel conceptual, but instead require hard memorization like key types and port numbers. There are tons of flash card sets on Quizlet to help out with this. I used this set to memorize port numbers.

• Jason Dion Practice Exams (Udemy)

  • 100% the best practice exams that I used! It comes with 6 tests with 65 questions each. My method was to take it "raw" the first time to get my baseline score on it. You absolutely have to review what you got incorrect. He explains why the correct answer is correct and why the wrong answers were wrong. So much of what I learned was from this. Eventually I was scoring 95% on those but that was likely because I had so many memorized, because I was only scoring 75 on other practice ones.. be careful about that false confidence.

• Jason Dion Udemy Course

  • Because his tests were so good I decided to give his Udemy course a try. I'd say his Udemy course was the most in depth and professional of all the video courses I used. I only watched sections of this one that I felt weak in: Crypto & PKI, Networking, and Command Line Tools.

• THE BIBLE - Darril Gibson's Book

  • I read through this book and took every test within it in 3 days before the exam. There's a pre-req, end of chapter tests, and a post exam. I got a 72 on the post exam the night before my real exam! It would be smarter to do 1 chapter a day for 11 days to finish the book, I was just stressing out lol

Exam Day

• Schedule your exam around your sleep schedule! If you don't wake up early, don't schedule it in the morning. I took mine at 1:00pm which gave me time to sleep in a little, and get some quick studying in.

• While driving to the exam I listened to some Udemy courses. I also got there about 45 minutes early to quickly read though Messer's study notes.

• 15 minutes before the exam I had a banana, a lunchable, and a Bang :)

Extra Tips

• You can get Udemy courses for really cheap if you just make new accounts and spoof it. Use incognito mode.

• u/hey_you37 sells vouchers for really cheap. They are 100% legit and that's how I took my exam!

• Go through this list of exam objective. You should be able to explain each term or at least be familiar with them

• Remember what your doing it for! It's really tough exam and studying IS NOT fun but If you just remind yourself why your doing it... that should be enough to motivate you to power through it. I did it to step up my career so that I can better provide for my fiance and my cats <3

YOU CAN DO IT :)

HUGE EDIT!!!: I JUST GOT A NETWORK OPERATIONS JOB OFFER

THANK YOU FOR SILVER AND ALL THE AWARDS IM SO HAPPY THIS POST IS REACHING PEOPLE!!!

Hey all, I just wanted to share the study guide I created to guide my progress as I prepared for SEC+. I just worked domains, filled in the blanks as I learned material, and revised them when I got a concept wrong on a practice test. This helps me stay organized in my progress. I hope it helps you as much as it helped me.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EJqBj637B6aj4CsNCGpM120TfZW92xiyg_T4bxiF6Ho/edit?usp=sharing

Nearly ruined it for myself! I was convinced my exam was at 2pm today, so I showed up at 1:15, had a drink and review my notes. Went to the proctor at 1:45 and she immediately gave me an annoyed “be on time next time”. Not knowing at the time that I was late, I have to admit I let it get to me, I’m pretty sensitive. I spent the entire exam being annoyed and wanting to get out of there. It was only after I was in the bathroom an hour later that I realized that I was lucky to be allowed to take the exam at all. I was even thinking of going to apologize to her, but I wasn’t rude to her or anything.

With that out of the way, I passed with a 761/900. No, I don’t like my score, but I went into this exam with a terrible attitude (which honestly started way before exam day because I’m feeling burned out from studying). I raced through all the questions in 25 minutes and had to force myself to review for another 20.

It felt easier than Net+, there are more questions that are straight to the point. Still, quite a few tripped me up. Can’t quite figure out when compTIA wants me to consider FDE or remote wipe. I’m thinking, remote wipe is only good as long as the device remains online. But I digress, I passed, I’m happy, I wanna move on.

Here are my study methods:

• CompTIA Security+ Study Guide with over 500 practice test questions These practice questions are good! Sometimes their website doesn’t work so I’ve done the chapter practice questions and the two full practice exams on my phone. My scores for the full practice exams were: 98% and 84%.

• Professor Messer’s Security+ 701 course and study sessions Can never go wrong with the Professor. Unfortunately I couldn’t afford his practice questions this time around.

• Jason Dion’s practice questions set one. I didn’t like these questions. There were a lot of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors which resulted in making the questions harder than they were, because what are you even saying? My scores were: 76%, 77%, 82%, 76%, 81% and 72%. I didn’t make these questions the focus of my study.

• Also didn’t really focus on examcompass much this time around, I took tests on exam day and scored 76% for test 3 and 60% on test 19. Please note that I didn’t take the percentage based on points, but the (lower) percentage based on questions that I answered correctly.

Just wanted to do another quick shoutout to Andrew Ramdayal, his “50 practice questions” video gave me the confidence I had enough knowledge to pass.

Shoutout number two goes out to Pete Zerger, his Security+ exam cram videos are absolutely fantastic. I learned some new things a day before the exam. His videos are not fully uploaded yet, but if you need a quick review, you can check out the completed modules. If you need to review a short topic, the completed modules are also available in smaller videos.

Okay, that’s the trifecta over and done with. From start to finish that took me a little less than five months. Though, I’m not done with compTIA just yet, I like this structured way of learning. I have to do Linux+ sometime this year and I’m definitely interested in moving forward with what I’ve learned so far.

I’m looking for tips on the best way to study. I feel very overwhelmed with the material because it’s so much. What’s the best way to study? I’m going chapter by chapter trying to remember the information but I’m wondering if it’s easier to go through it all at once.

I’m writing key points in my notebook and then creating flash cards, this just doesn’t seem effective because I’m not retaining a lot .

Our study guide is for a previous version of the exam so I've put it online. I can see it covers much of the current version topics but you will need to some some more reading to cover the new topics.

https://www.howtonetwork.com/comptia-security-study-guide-free/

Have Fun

Paul Browning

I bought and watched through Professor Dion's Security+ prep course and there was so much content in there, that I wonder how I'll even be able to know it all for the exam.

Although it felt like content overload, the content makes sense. I just don't understand how anyone is expected to know all of this for an "entry level certification"...?

For context, I'm currently a junior in a GRC cyber role - so some of the concepts I'm already aware of and am familiar with. But I'd say about %85 of the content is new.

Two questions:

1. Does Dion's training cover too much detail in your experience? If so, how did you pull what is important vs. what is "good to know"?

2. Any tips on how to digest all of this new information?

TIA!!

Hey guys! So I just started studying for my exam coming up in a little over 2 weeks. I did the whole google cybersecurity cert course first and now I'm wondering what's the best way to study. Im still fairly iffy on the material though. Here's my questions tho

Should I just study purely on concepts and terms from videos?

Use professor messer's practice tests for the whole thing and just learn the terms/ memorize answers?

Study just tests?

Study just videos?

Both?

I'm an awful test taker and haven't taken a lot of tests recently and want to get better.

Thanks for any advice y'all are able to give me!

Hi everyone, I've decided that I'm going to push myself to actually go for the Security+ Cert. I only took 4 courses related to cyber security when I was in college, and I liked it, but I never found myself having confidence in my learning without more hands-on experience. Even though I still haven't had as much as I'd like, I'd like to at least attempt it to say I tried.

I recently purchased the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Complete Course & Exam on Udemy since it was on sale, but I was hoping there were some other materials that are free so I can periodically/briefly study when I've got down time.

I also typically work with some sort of media (music/YouTube/streaming service) going so if there is anything that is worth me listening to for indirect familiarization I'd be open to that as well!

I have 3 weeks to prep for my Security+ exam. I have no prior certifications and ~2 months experience working in a cybersecurity and IT governance role. I have a full time offer contingent on passing this certification. I know this timeline is unrealistic for most, but it is the situation at hand. I have completed the 24hr linkedin learning track, I watch messer and PBQ walkthrough videos on downtime, use multiple comptia exam prep apps to drill MCQ on the go, review guides for each domain, flashcards for ports and acronyms. I am taking my first practice test today to identify areas of weakness. If anyone can offer advice on the most effective and time-conscious study methods you used to prep for this exam, please share them with me! Any tips or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!