Course: CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701)

Every long journey, including the path to Security+ certification, begins with a few steps and some fundamental practices. Security goals and controls are an important starting point for building your security skills. You will begin this course by familiarizing yourself with the four primary security goals of confidentiality, integrity, availability, and non-repudiation. You will then explore the concepts of authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) and how they relate to people, systems, and models. Finally, you will delve into security control categories and types. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

The Security+ candidate must display competency in an assortment of core security concepts including the newer Zero Trust initiative and common physical security controls. In this course, the learner will explore gap analysis, Zero Trust control and data planes, deception technologies like honeynets, physical security controls, Change Management business processes and technical implications, and documentation and version control. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

Cryptography is at the heart of many security controls and countermeasures and as such, Security+ candidates must have a solid grasp of practical cryptography. In this course, you will discover symmetric and asymmetric cryptography and compare different encryption levels, including full disk and partition. Next, you will explore hashing, salting, hash-based message authentication codes (HMACs), and key exchange. Then you will examine digital signatures, certificates, and public key infrastructure (PKI), focusing on certificate authorities (CAs), certificate signing request (CSR) generation, and Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP). Finally, you will investigate cryptographic tools like Trusted Platform Module (TPM), hardware security module, and key management systems, and you will dive into blockchain technology. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

One of the primary goals for an emerging security practitioner is to have a firm grasp of the present threatscape. The learner will build this vital knowledge base in this course. In this course, we will explore threat actor types, attributes, and motivations. Next, we will dive into the use of human vectors and social engineering as well as common attack surfaces. Then we will explore supply chain, application, and O/S and web-based vulnerabilities. Finally, we will cover hardware and virtualization vulnerabilities, cloud vulnerabilities, and mobile device vulnerabilities. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

Malicious software, also known as malware, comes in a variety of attack vectors and characteristics. The ability to stay current with the different malware and variants is one of the biggest challenges for modern security professionals. Begin this course by exploring malware attacks like ransomware, trojan horses, and logic bombs. Then you will investigate physical and network attacks including brute force, denial-of-service, and credential replay attacks. Next, you will focus on application and cryptographic attacks, such as buffer overflow, privilege escalation, collision, and birthday attacks. Finally, you will take a look at password attacks and discover indicators of compromise, like concurrent session usage, blocked content, and impossible travel. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

As a security professional, it is always better to be proactive with mitigation rather than purely reactive. Begin this course by exploring segmentation and isolation, access control mechanisms, and configuration and patch management. Next, you will investigate the principles of least privilege and separation of duties and find out how encryption technologies can shield private information from unauthorized users. Then you will examine the monitoring and visibility of access controls and learn the best practices for decommissioning and offboarding. Finally, you will focus on hardening techniques, including endpoint detection and response (EDR), host intrusion detection system (HIDS)/host intrusion prevention system (HIPS), disabling ports/protocols, default password changes, and removal of unnecessary software. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

A physical structure that is built by engineers and architects needs solid design, construction, and ongoing maintenance. The same can be said for a networking and system environment. Begin this course by exploring fundamental security architectural considerations, including high availability, resilience, scalability, and responsiveness. Then, you will discover cloud computing, focusing on the cloud responsibility matrix, hybrid considerations, and third-party vendors. You will investigate Infrastructure as Code, compare serverless technologies, and learn about containers and microservices. Next, you will take a look at network infrastructure, centralized and decentralized design, and virtualization. Finally, you will examine industrial control systems (ICSs), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, and the Internet of Things. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

This course is a critical component of modern technical controls and countermeasures, as many of the technologies covered represent the daily technical activities of security practitioners, operators, and administrators. Begin by discovering various infrastructure security considerations like device placement, security zones, and failure modes. Then, you will compare network appliances and explore port security and firewalls. Next, you will examine virtual private networks (VPNs) and IP security (IPSec). Finally, you will investigate transport layer security (TLS), software-defined wide area networks (SD-WANs), and secure access service edge (SASE). This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

It is an understatement to declare that society is rapidly becoming a data-driven and service-oriented. Data protection and security is a key aspect of modern IT security management. In this course, we will begin by exploring data states, classification, types, and lifecycles. Then we will examine considerations for securing data including geographic and cultural restrictions, encryptions, and hashing. Finally, we will look at masking, obfuscation, and tokenization as well as segmentation and compartmentalization. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

Restoration and recovery is a vital part of a comprehensive backup plan. As a well-known axiom regarding backup strategy states, "a backup policy without tested restoration and recovery is no backup at all." In this course, we will examine restoration and recovery concepts, beginning with load balancing, clustering, and backup strategies. Next, we will explore continuity of operations, multicloud, and disaster recovery sites. We will then focus on capacity planning and testing techniques. Finally, we will look at power considerations. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

Today's security professional must contend with more types of computing systems and operating systems than ever before due to mobility, embedded, smart, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. In this course, you will explore secure baselines and hardening targets. Then you will learn about wireless device installation issues, mobile device solutions, and connection methods. Next, you will investigate wireless security settings, cryptographic protocols, and authentication protocols. Finally, you will discover application security techniques and asset management tasks, including assignment/accounting, monitoring/asset tracking, enumeration, and disposal/decommissioning. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

Vulnerability management is an ongoing process designed to proactively protect computer systems, networks, and applications from cyberattacks and data breaches and is an integral part of your overall security system. Begin this course by exploring threat feeds like open-source intelligence (OSINT), Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS), and Common Vulnerability Enumeration (CVE) to help gather information about potential threats or adversaries. Then you will investigate application vulnerability assessments for assigning severity levels, vulnerability scanning to identify known and unknown weaknesses, and penetration testing to simulate real-world attacks. Finally, you will discover vulnerability response and learn how to validate and report on remediation processes. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

Congratulations. You have convinced your steering committee to give you a huge budget, new hires, and broader access to deploy a ton of security controls at the new regional branch office. However, within weeks you will be brought back to report on the effectiveness of the new expensive toys. This is why solid monitoring and alerting are critical for success. In this course, you will explore security monitoring and alerting, beginning with monitoring computing resources, visibility, and agent-based and agentless monitoring. Then you will focus on monitoring activities like log aggregation, alert response, and validation. Next, you will discover the importance and benefits of Security Content Automation Protocol (SCAP), security information and event management (SIEM), and security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) systems. Finally, you will investigate antivirus and data loss prevention (DLP) systems, Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) traps, and NetFlow records. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

This course is a vital exploration of many of the day-to-day operational controls that the security professional is often involved with. This is what is referred to as the "due care" aspect of the job or ongoing continual maintenance. In other words, these are core "blue team" responsibilities. Topics presented to the learner include firewalls, intrusion detection system (IDS)/intrusion prevention system (IPS), web filtering, operating system security, implementing secure protocols, DNS filtering, email security, DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM), Sender Policy Framework (SPF), gateways, File Integrity Monitoring (FIM), data loss prevention (DLP), network access control (NAC), endpoint detection and response (EDR), Extended Detection and Response (XDR), and user behavior analytics (UBA). This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

Hybrid and remote work are more common than ever, and employees need secure access to enterprise resources from wherever they are. This is where identity and access management (IAM) comes to the rescue. The organization's IT department needs to control what users can and can't access so that sensitive data and functions are restricted to only the people and resources that need to work with them. In this course, we will explore IAM tools beginning with provisioning and deprovisioning user accounts, and password concepts including password best practices, length, complexity, reuse, expiration, age, password managers, and passwordless solutions. Next, we will look at federation and single sign-on (SSO), Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), Open Authorization (OAuth), Security Assertions Markup Language (SAML), interoperability, and attestation. We will then consider access control models including mandatory, discretionary, role-based, rule-based, attribute-based, time-of-day restrictions, and least privilege. Finally, we will explore multi-factor authentication (MFA), biometric authentication, and privileged access management tools (PAM). This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

Automation offers many advantages to information technology including higher production rates and increased productivity, more efficient use of resources, both physical and logical, better product/service quality, and improved security and safety. In this course the learner will tackle concepts such as automation and scripting use cases, continuous integration and testing, application programming interfaces (APIs), the benefits of automation, automation considerations, the incident response process, training, testing, tabletop exercises, simulations, threat hunting, root cause analysis, digital forensics, and investigation data sources. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

According to Gartner: "Security governance is a process for overseeing the cybersecurity teams who are responsible for mitigating business risks. Security governance leaders make the decisions that allow risks to be prioritized so that security efforts are focused on business priorities rather than their own." In this course, you will further define security governance and types of governance structures. Then you will discover security governance roles and responsibilities, such as owners, stewards, and officers, and external governance considerations. Next, you will explore guidance, best practices, standards, and policies like the software development life cycle (SDLC) and change management. Finally, you will investigate security governance procedures, including playbooks, monitoring, and revision. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

Security risk management is the ongoing process of identifying security risks and implementing plans to address them. Most security professionals should have a solid foundation in this important cross-disciplinary initiative. In this course, you will take a deep dive into security risk management, including risk identification and assessment. Then you will explore risk analysis concepts like qualitative and quantitative analysis and impact/magnitude. Next, you will discover risk treatment and handling strategies, including transfer, acceptance, and exemption. You will examine risk registers and ledgers, key risk indicators, risk owners, and risk thresholds. Finally, you will investigate risk reporting techniques and business impact analysis (BIA) to predict the consequences of a disruption to a business and collect information needed to develop recovery strategies. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

Security compliance management is the collection of policies, procedures, and other internal controls that an enterprise leverages to meet its regulatory requirements for data privacy and protection. In this course, you will explore compliance monitoring topics like due diligence, attestation, and compliance automation, as well as internal and external compliance reporting. Then you investigate the consequences of non-compliance, including fines, sanctions, and reputational damage. Next, you will examine privacy considerations for keeping information involving people confidential. Finally, you will assess vendor assessment and selection techniques like supply chain analysis and rules of engagement, and you will discover various agreement types, such as non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), service-level agreements (SLAs), and statements of work (SOWs). This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.

A security audit is a systematic and methodical examination of an organization's security infrastructure, policies, and procedures. The goal is to identify vulnerabilities, weaknesses, and potential threats to sensitive information assets, physical assets, and personnel. In this final course, the learner will be exposed to topics such as internal and external audit and attestation, penetration testing audits, user guidance and training, phishing campaigns, and security training monitoring and reporting. This course is part of a series that prepares you for the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) exam.