-: Now, before we dig into the course material,
let's talk a little bit about the exam itself.
What is the Cybersecurity Analyst certification?
Well, the Cybersecurity Analyst certification,
or CSA+, is an international,
vendor-neutral cybersecurity certification.
It applies behavioral analytics to improve
the overall state of IT security.
CSA+ is gonna validate your critical skills
and knowledge that are required to prevent,
detect and combat cybersecurity threats.
Now that comes straight from CompTIA's website.
That's how they view the exam.
So, what is that gonna look like on test day for you?
Well, the exam itself is gonna cover a couple of things.
It's gonna cover the configuration
and use of threat detection tools.
It's gonna allow you to do some
data analysis and interpretation.
You're gonna do that in the simulations,
as well as in the multiple choice questions,
as a result of identifying vulnerabilities,
threats, and risks to the organization.
You're gonna secure and protect applications and systems,
or show that you have the knowledge of how to do that.
Now there's four domains on the exam.
It's broken up into threat management,
which is 27% of your questions,
vulnerability management, which is 26% of the questions,
cyber incident response, which is 23% of your questions,
security architecture and tool sets
is the final 24% of your questions.
Now, this course is broken up into those
four sections as well, and we'll focus on them
individually as we move our way through the course,
going from the top, down, covering
domains one through domain four.
Now the exam itself has up to 85 questions on test day.
But don't worry, they give you a lot of time.
In fact, they're gonna give you 165 minutes.
That's almost three hours of time
to complete these 85 questions.
Now, you do require a score of 750 points out of 900,
which roughly equates to about an 83%.
This exam is designed for people who have
some experience in the cybersecurity field.
In fact, they're lookin' for people who
preferably already have their Security+,
or that level of knowledge, and about three to four years
of information security hands-on experience.
Now, what does that mean?
They're lookin' for people who understand
how to read logs and analyze the results.
But most of the exam doesn't dig that deep into that,
but there are gonna be questions on that.
So if you don't have three to four years of experience,
it's not a hard and fast rule.
I'll teach you the information you
need to know to pass the exam.
But, that is what the exam is designed for.
Now, the exam does cost money.
It costs currently about $320 in U.S. dollars.
You go and take the exam at one of the
Pearson VUE testing centers, or one of
the Prometric testing centers,
and you can sign up on their website
at prometric.com or pearsonvue.com.
And you can get those vouchers for $320
to go and schedule your exam.
The exam was released in February of 2017.
Most CompTIA exams follow about a three-year cycle,
so all the information in this course
will be valid and current up until about the spring of 2020.
Now in 2020, they'll update the exam,
and they'll come out with the version two,
and the test questions will change a little bit
as they always do, usually about 15 to 20%
of the exam changes from cycle to cycle as they go through.
But everything you're gonna learn in this class
is current from 2017 until about spring of 2020.
Now, where does this fit into the
cybersecurity career path, as CompTIA calls it?
Well, they think people should start out
with the big three, which they call
A+, Network+, and Security+, and then there was CASP,
which is a five-year or more experience,
usually five to ten years, and it's very managerial-focused.
But there's kind of this hole,
for people who wanted to stay technical,
and that's where they think CSA fits in.
If you're a cybersecurity analyst,
a vulnerability manager, a threat analysis technician,
or something in that line, that's where CSA+ really fits in.
It's for those people who wanna stay technical,
and rise to more senior levels,
as opposed to going more on the managerial track,
which is what CASP focuses on.
Now, are you ready to take the exam?
Well, let's start studying and get ready together.