I passed my CySA+ on my first attempt today! I managed to score 770, which I'm kind of having a hard time believing myself. It was quite hard with many ambiguous questions; surprisingly, I got 4 PBQs and found 3 of them quite straightforward once I spent some time on it.
I was pretty much sweating towards the end, especially that stupid survey; by the time I finished the survey I was convinced that I hadn't passed. What a relief!
Here are the resources I used in case anyone finds it useful:
I'm not much of a text book guy, however I've read on this subreddit that many highly recommend the Sybex study guide, if you're into that. My study consisted mainly of watching video courses and making my own notes.
- Pearson LiveLessons CySA+ course: I have access to O'Reilly courses for free from my work place, so I thought this would be a good place to start. It was a 20 hour course which only really ended up giving a high level understanding of CySA+. I don't recommend it unless you have free access. Kind of regret doing this one, though this was filmed in 2022, so might be more up to date than others.
- Mike Chapple's CySA+ course: This was more my style, straight and to the point in depth just enough and gives you a pretty good idea on what to study for the exam. I found this much more informative than the live lessons course; also another 20 hours. However, I've read somewhere that these were recorded a bit before the CS0-002 exam was out, so maybe take it with a grain of salt. I didn't feel like it missed anything though.
- Certify Breakfast CySA+: Used this course to brush up on whatever I learned (watched in 1.75x speed), but honestly I wish I'd started with this course. I recommend most people start here and explore other courses since it's free, and also it's more fun watching his course.
Other resources:
- Pearson Practice Tests: Also free as a part of my access to O'Reilly. It's good for maybe 2 attempts, but it quickly started repeating questions and didn't feel like a good measure of my progress anymore.
- Cybrary CySA+ Labs: I'd say this was my favourite study material. It cost me around $7 for a month's subscription, and I think it was worth it just for the hands on labs. It covered pretty much everything, including Windows 10, Server, Linux, Kali Linux VMs and guides you step by step on many possible aspects of using the tools available to you, like SIEM, IDS/IPS, AV, vulnerability scanners -- it had plenty of tools to cover. I highly recommend this one, especially if you don't have a home lab or prior work experience in cybersecurity (then it's critical to do labs).
Hope it helps!
Originally published on LinkedIn.