Hello guys,
I just passed my Security+ exam on the first attempt and wanted to show you what resources I used and how my experience can prepare you for the exam. Additionally, here is my personal opinion about the certificate and what I learned from it.
My Testcenter Exam-Experience
I took the exam in Frankfurt (Germany) at a Pearson-Vue Testcenter. Of course I was nervous :) The staff was nice and did a good job of making me a little less nervous. But as soon as I was brought into the testing room and the exam started I was able to concentrate and block out the rest. I could see that someone took the AWS Solution-Architect exam and I just thought to myself that this guys has a way harder task then I should be able to pass this little Security+ exam.
When I saw the screen with “Passed” after the compTia survey, I said “yes” and made like a victory fist and then quietly left the room.
My Study-Resources and Exam-Preaparation
My employer bought me the compTia-bundle with the Voucher, Official Study Guide and the CertMaster.
I read the whole Official Book (620 sites) and made the exercises. Then I made flashcards in Anki 4 weeks before the exam to remember the most important concepts and things I had problems with. The last two weeks I downloaded the official free Security+ App from the AppStore. The App is way better than the Cert-Master because the questions did not felt they were near the exam-questions. The App is not so much talked about/known and kinda underrated. In the endphase I watched Professor Messer YT-Videos on topics I had problems with like PKI or Cross-Site Scripting and did CertMaster-Questions.
- Read the Official Study Guide
- Made Anki Flashcards for the most important concepts/topics
- Watched Professor Messer YouTube-Videos on difficult topics
- Free Security+ App -> Apple & Android
- CertMaster Questions and Exercises
Exam-Tips
Just quick exam-tips for the final day.
- Do not learn anything on the exam-day, it just makes you insecure!
- Drink and eat something healthy before your exam (Water & Fruits)
- When you cannot solve fast the performance-based questions then flag them and go next. You can review and continue with them after you finished the rest.
My opinion on the Security+ Certification
I work right now already in the Cybersecurity-area as SOC-Analyst but I still learned alot I would say. The certification gives you a really good oversight about Cybersecurity and all its areas. After the certification I felt I had a better understanding for Cybersecurity. It really surprised me how big of a part availability and Disaster-Recovery of servers are in Cybersecurity. I always thought the operations-team or serveradmins were responsible for that. I can recommend this certification to everyone, even when you do not work specifically in Cybersecurity since security will play a major role in the future.
I hope this was useful for you and helps you a little bit for your certificationö
Reach out on my social-media accounts when you have any questions.
Thanks for reading,
Christopher