Hi! And welcome to this course
on the CompTIA SecurityX
or CAS-005 certification exam.
SecurityX is part of the CompTIA Xpert Series
of certifications
for experienced technical professionals
who are interested in validating
their own expert-level knowledge.
SecurityX was previously known
as the CompTIA Advanced Security
Practitioner Certification or CASP+,
but since it has been added
to the CompTIA Xpert Series of certifications,
it's been renamed and rebranded as SecurityX.
The CompTIA Xpert Series certifications include:
DataX, CloudNetX, and SecurityX.
The SecurityX certification is specifically designed
for senior security engineers and architects
who wish to remain immersed in technology
as opposed to moving
into a strictly managerial career.
It validates advanced-level competency
and risk management,
enterprise security operations and architecture,
research and collaboration,
and the integration of enterprise security
and organizational networks.
Furthermore, the SecurityX certification covers
the technical knowledge and skills required
to conceptualize, engineer, integrate,
and implement secure solutions
across complex environments in support
of a more resilient enterprise.
This certification is designed
for advanced level security professionals
with at least 10 years of IT experience
to include 5 years
of broad hands-on security experience.
Prior to taking the SecurityX exam,
CompTIA recommends you complete the Security+,
CySA+, and Pentest+ exams,
but that is a recommendation
and not a strict requirement.
The SecurityX exam includes a lot of information
from lower-level CompTIA exams such as Security+,
and Network+.
Much of the information from those certifications
is assumed knowledge,
so I won't be reteaching all of that content.
Instead, through this course,
we are going to be building
upon your foundational knowledge
of computer security, cyber security analysis,
and penetration testing.
But, don't worry, we're going to review any areas
that are specific to the SecurityX exam
that you might need to know.
The SecurityX exam consists of four domains
or areas of knowledge
that you are going to receive questions
on when you sit for your certification exam.
Domain 1 is Governance, Risk, and Compliance,
and it will make up 20% of your exam questions.
This domain focuses on a comprehensive framework
for managing organizational risk,
ensuring compliance with regulations,
and establishing governance practices
to best achieve business objectives.
Major topics in this domain
also include Governance, Risk,
and Compliance Strategies, Threat Modeling,
and Artificial Intelligence Challenges
to the Enterprise.
Domain 2 is Security Architecture,
and it will make up 27% of your exam questions.
This domain is focused on the design
of resilient systems and secure infrastructures
by strategically implementing components
such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems,
intrusion prevention systems,
and virtual private networks
to enable confidentiality, integrity, availability,
and scalability.
Major topics in this domain
also include design resiliency,
software and hardware assurance,
secure architecture design,
enterprise cloud implementation,
and zero-trust Architecture.
Domain 3 is Security Engineering,
and it will make up 31% of your exam questions.
This domain focuses on designing, troubleshooting,
and securing complex systems
through advanced identity
and access management, endpoint protection,
and network infrastructure security techniques.
Major topics in this domain include
network infrastructure troubleshooting,
specialized and legacy systems, automation,
and advanced cryptographic techniques.
Domain 4 is Security Operations,
and it will make up 22% of your exam questions.
This domain is focused on continuous monitoring,
analysis, and response to security events
through leveraging tools such as Security
Information and event management
or SIEM systems, and behavior analysis
to identify and mitigate threats.
Major topics in this domain
include vulnerability analysis, threat intelligence,
and incident response using techniques
such as malware analysis, reverse engineering,
and threat hunting to protect enterprise systems
from evolving attacks.
Now, under each of these four domains,
there are several objectives
that explain something you either have to know
or have to be able to do on exam day.
For example, Objective 1.1 states that given a set
of organizational security requirements,
you must be able
to implement appropriate governance components.
In all, there are 23
of these exam objectives provided
in the CompTIA Certification Exam Objectives.
You will notice that as we go through this course,
we will not be covering the domains and objectives
in the order presented
in the official
CompTIA Certification Exam objectives.
Instead, we are going to cover the material in a way
and order that makes the most sense
from an educational perspective,
building on topics and objectives
in a logical manner.
However, I highly recommend you download
the CompTIA SecurityX Certification
Exam Objectives
and print them out
because they are going to give you a great checklist
of everything we are going to cover.
The exam objectives may be downloaded
from lesson two of this course.
As we begin each section of the course,
I'm going to tell you which objectives we'll cover
in that section,
and every video in this course is labeled
with the objective number
or numbers that apply to it in parentheses
after the video's title.
For example,
"Change and Configuration Management
(Objective 1.1)" tells you that this topic,
Change and Configuration Management,
comes from domain one,
and specifically objective 1.1.
Now, the exam you will take
to become SecurityX Certified
has a maximum of 90 questions.
All of the questions are either multiple choice,
multiple select,
or performance-based style questions.
You can expect approximately three
to five performance-based style questions.
You may notice that the exam results will look
different from other CompTIA Certification Exams.
When you complete the exam,
you will only see a pass or a fail.
There won't be a numerical score.
Though a numerical scoring goal
is not available for reference,
if you're earning scores around 80 to 85 percent
or higher on your practice exams,
you should do fine on the actual certification exam.
To take this exam, you will need to buy a voucher.
You may do this by going to store.comptia.org
and buying it directly from CompTIA
at the full retail price.
At the CompTIA store,
vouchers cost around $500 for the SecurityX exam,
but this does vary depending upon
where you live in the world
and where you're going to be taking the exam.
However, regardless of where you live in the world,
you can save about 10% off your voucher
if you go to our website
at diontraining.com/vouchers
and buy your voucher there.
This is because we help tens of thousands
of students every year pass their exams,
and CompTIA provides us
with a special discount rate on the vouchers
that we purchase for our students
because we buy so many of them.
But you can only get this 10 percent discount
by going to diontraining.com/vouchers.
Once you buy your voucher,
you will get access to the voucher
in about five minutes.
Now, don't worry about buying your voucher yet.
They expire 11 months after you purchase them
and we still have a lot of lessons to cover
before you're going to be ready to schedule your exam.
But I just wanted to let you know ahead of time
that you can get a discounted voucher
and save 10% by going
to diontraining.com/vouchers
simply because you are a Dion Training student.
So, now that you know what to expect
on the SecurityX exam,
I want to take a quick detour in the course
to introduce myself and share 4 important tips
to help maximize your learning during
our time together.
My name is Jeremiah Minner
and I'm an instructor with Dion Training.
I'm a lifetime teacher
and an avid professional technology enthusiast
and practitioner.
I have taught in-person and virtual courses
for years covering approximately
15 professional certifications across organizations
such as CompTIA, EC-Council, Cisco, and AWS.
In my professional technology career,
I have had the opportunity to manage small
and large networks, advise large organizations
on technology requirements,
and develop content for large organizations
to teach certification prep courses.
I have also developed labs
and student lab infrastructure
for large organizations.
My passion is helping new
and seasoned security professionals
to enhance their technological skills,
and I am dedicated to helping people just
like you reach your career milestones
in the IT industry.
Now let me provide you with 4 tips for success
in this course.
First, every video in the course has closed captions.
Each video is captioned by a real human
for increased accuracy, and this allows you to read
along with the course if you need to.
Many of our students who speak English
as their second language really love
having these captions playing along
with the videos to aid in their learning
and comprehension.
If you want to enable closed captioning,
simply click the CC button at the bottom
of your video player.
My second tip is about playback speed.
Some of my students say that I speak way too fast,
and others say I speak too slow,
but either way you get to control the speed
of instruction by clicking on the 1x button
at the bottom of your video player.
If you want me to teach faster, select 1.25 or 1.5x.
If you want me to teach slower, simply click on 0.75
or 0.5x.
Either faster or slower, the choice is yours.
The third and probably one
of the most important tips is that this course
does come with a downloadable study guide
as a PDF.
This can be downloaded from the second lesson
of this course, and I recommend you download it
and refer to it during your offline studies
as you're preparing for the exam.
I also recommend you print the exam objectives,
so you have a quick reference of topics
as we go through the course.
Finally, the fourth
and final tip I have is
about our student support groups.
We have student support groups
with over 40,000 other students
who are learning SecurityX
and other cybersecurity,
and IT certifications through our training program.
If you want to join the fun,
you can find us at facebook.com
/groups/diontraining,
and then simply request to join this private group.
If you aren't on Facebook,
you can also find us on Discord
at diontraining.com/discord.
In both of these groups,
we answer questions,
put out additional free content,
and help support each other
throughout our careers.
Also, if you ask a question in one of these locations,
you'll likely get an answer pretty quickly,
usually within just a few minutes.
This is because there are tens of thousands
of other students, both past and present,
who join in on the conversation there.
So, if you're on Facebook or Discord,
I highly recommend you join these groups today.
Lastly, if these options don't work for you,
you can always ask questions
by posting in the Q&A section of this course.
Simply click on the Q&A tab
of your course landing page,
and enter your question there.
Either one of the Dion Training team members,
or I will answer your question there
within about 24 to 48 hours, in most cases.
Like I said, the Facebook group and Discord do tend
to get your questions answered a bit faster simply
because there are more people available
anytime online during the day,
or night to help you out.
Now, with all the basics out of the way,
let's get started learning about enterprise security
in this SecurityX certification course!