Mike Chapple - CompTIA CySA+ Practice Tests

1 Cover

2 Acknowledgments Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the many people who made this book possible. Kenyon Brown at Wiley has been a wonderful partner through many books over the years. Carole Jelen, our agent, worked on a myriad of logistic details and handled the business side of the book with her usual grace and commitment to excellence. Chris Crayton, our technical editor, pointed out many opportunities to improve our work and deliver a high-quality final product. Kezia Endsley served as developmental editor and managed the project smoothly. Thank you to Runzhi “Tom” Song, Mike's research assistant at Notre Dame, who spent hours proofreading our final copy. Many other people we'll never meet worked behind the scenes to make this book a success.

3 About the Authors About the Authors Mike Chapple, PhD, CISSP, is an author of the best-selling CySA+ Study Guide and CISSP ( ISC) 2 Certified Information Systems Security Professional Official Study Guide , now in its eighth edition. He is an information security professional with two decades of experience in higher education, the private sector, and government. Mike currently serves as teaching professor of IT, analytics, and operations at the University of Notre Dame, where he teaches courses focused on cybersecurity and business analytics. Before returning to Notre Dame, Mike served as executive vice president and chief information officer of the Brand Institute, a Miami-based marketing consultancy. Mike also spent four years in the information security research group at the National Security Agency and served as an active duty intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force. Mike earned both his BS and PhD degrees from Notre Dame in computer science and engineering. He also holds an MS in computer science from the University of Idaho and an MBA from Auburn University. David Seidl is the Vice President for Information Technology and CIO at Miami University. During his IT career, he has served in a variety of technical and information security roles, including serving at the Senior Director for Campus Technology Services at the University of Notre Dame, where he co-led Notre Dame's move to the cloud and oversaw cloud operations, ERP, databases, identity management, and a broad range of other technologies and service. He also served as Notre Dame's Director of Information Security and led Notre Dame's information security program. He has taught information security and networking undergraduate courses as an instructor for Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business and has written books on security certification and cyberwarfare, including co-authoring CISSP (ISC) 2 Official Practice Tests (Sybex 2018) as well as the previous editions of both this book and the companion CompTIA CySA+ Practice Tests: Exam CS0-001 . David holds a bachelor's degree in communication technology and a master's degree in information security from Eastern Michigan University, as well as CISSP, CySA+, Pentest+, GPEN, and GCIH certifications.

4 About the Technical Editor About the Technical Editor Chris Crayton, MCSE, CISSP, CASP, CySA+, A+, N+, S+, is a technical consultant, trainer, author and industry leading technical editor. He has worked as a computer technology and networking instructor, information security director, network administrator, network engineer, and PC specialist. Chris has served as technical editor and content contributor on numerous technical titles for several of the leading publishing companies. He has also been recognized with many professional and teaching awards.

5 Introduction Introduction CompTIA CySA+ ( Cybersecurity Analyst) Practice Tests, Second Edition is a companion volume to the CompTIA CySA+ Study Guide, Second Edition (Sybex, 2020, Chapple/Seidl). If you're looking to test your knowledge before you take the CySA+ exam, this book will help you by providing a combination of 1,000 questions that cover the CySA+ domains and easy-to-understand explanations of both right and wrong answers. If you're just starting to prepare for the CySA+ exam, we highly recommend that you use the Cybersecurity Analyst+ (CySA+) Study Guide, Second Edition to help you learn about each of the domains covered by the CySA+ exam. Once you're ready to test your knowledge, use this book to help find places where you may need to study more or to practice for the exam itself. Since this is a companion to the CySA+ Study Guide , this book is designed to be similar to taking the CySA+ exam. It contains multipart scenarios as well as standard multiple-choice questions similar to those you may encounter in the certification exam itself. The book itself is broken up into seven chapters: five domain-centric chapters with questions about each domain, and two chapters that contain 85-question practice tests to simulate taking the CySA+ exam itself. CompTIA CompTIA CompTIA is a nonprofit trade organization that offers certification in a variety of IT areas, ranging from the skills that a PC support technician needs, which are covered in the A+ exam, to advanced certifications like the CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner, or CASP certification. CompTIA recommends that practitioners follow a cybersecurity career path as shown here: The Cybersecurity Analyst+ exam is a more advanced exam, intended for professionals with hands-on experience and who possess the knowledge covered by the prior exams. CompTIA certifications are ISO and ANSI accredited, and they are used throughout multiple industries as a measure of technical skill and knowledge. In addition, CompTIA certifications, including the CySA+, the Security+ and the CASP certifications, have been approved by the U.S. government as Information Assurance baseline certifications and are included in the State Department's Skills Incentive Program. Study and Exam Preparation Tips Study and Exam Preparation Tips We recommend you use this book in conjunction with the Cybersecurity Analyst+ (CySA+) Study Guide, Second Edition . Read through chapters in the study guide and then try your hand at the practice questions associated with each domain in this book. You should also keep in mind that the CySA+ certification is designed to test practical experience, so you should also make sure that you get some hands-on time with the security tools covered on the exam. CompTIA recommends the use of NetWars-style simulations, penetration testing and defensive cybersecurity simulations, and incident response training to prepare for the CySA+. Additional resources for hands-on exercises include the following: Exploit-Exercises.com provides virtual machines, documentation, and challenges covering a wide range of security issues at exploit-exercises.lains.space. Hacking-Lab provides capture-the-flag (CTF) exercises in a variety of fields at www.hacking-lab.com/index.html . PentesterLab provides a subscription-based access to penetration testing exercises at www.pentesterlab.com/exercises/. The InfoSec Institute provides online capture-the-flag activities with bounties for written explanations of successful hacks at ctf.infosecinstitute.com . Since the exam uses scenario-based learning, expect the questions to involve analysis and thought, rather than relying on simple memorization. As you might expect, it is impossible to replicate that experience in a book, so the questions here are intended to help you be confident that you know the topic well enough to think through hands-on exercises. Taking the Exam Taking the Exam Once you are fully prepared to take the exam, you can visit the CompTIA website to purchase your exam voucher: www.comptiastore.com/Articles.asp?ID=265&category=vouchers CompTIA partners with Pearson VUE's testing centers, so your next step will be to locate a testing center near you. In the United States, you can do this based on your address or your ZIP code, while non-U.S. test takers may find it easier to enter their city and country. You can search for a test center near you at the Pearson Vue website, where you will need to navigate to “Find a test center”: www.pearsonvue.com/comptia/ Now that you know where you'd like to take the exam, simply set up a Pearson VUE testing account and schedule an exam: www.comptia.org/testing/testing-options/take-in-person-exam On the day of the test, bring two forms of identification, and make sure to show up with plenty of time before the exam starts. Remember that you will not be able to take your notes, electronic devices (including smartphones and watches), or other materials in with you.