whats a good study guide for security+?

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? need a good book

 

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I just passed the Security+ exam today. Feels good!

I only used 2 sources:

Professor Messer's videos
Security+ Practice Exams by Daniel Lachance and Glen E. Clarke

Obviously, I'm not suggesting that is all you use but those got me the cert. Good luck.

 

I used a couple of books for the Sec+... this was the first one I bought. It was very easy to read, but I felt it didn't go into enough detail on certain subjects.
I then bought this one, and it was more indepth on the subject.

Also used the Boson Sec+ exams tests to prep and can only recommend them.

Cheers
NB

 

Congrats on the pass

NB

 

Thanks! I should note that I took the 301. I didn't see as much stuff out there for it which is why I used the videos almost exclusively.

 

I used the COMPTIA book which was good, but could have provided more detail in the early, more fundamental chapters. If you don't already have a good background on the subject, you may need/want another book foreferencece. I found this worked best for me.

 

John Wiley & Sons book worked for me.

 

It looks like you can't go wrong with the Comptia books for Comptia exams. Best of luck.

 

I've just started studying in real earnest for this now. Using the Darril Gibson book.
It has rave reviews on Amazon (two out of two reviews on .co.uk give it 5-star, and on .com out of 47 reviews 43 are 5-star, 3 are 4-star, and there's just one 3-star. And right now, the Kindle version is ridicuously cheap! (£6.67)
Lots of practice questions and it's very readable. (More enjoyable than his Sybex 685/686 book!)

My only question is how comprehensive it is. It seems very comprehensive, but I'm a few chapters in and haven't really gone out of my comfort zone yet. It may simply be that through the MCTS work, the Network+ and mucking about with computers, I've covered a lot of this and am about ready. I don't know. Anyone else used this book? Is it pitching at about the right level for the test?

 

Not meaning to look like a headcase here, answering my own questions, but throught I ought to update...
I passed the Security+ last Friday. 839/900 (about 93%), which I consider comfortable. Darril Gibson's book is pitched about perfectly, and covers every objective comprehensively. No complaints. Especially at the Kindle asking price (six pound sixty seven).

The exam is solid covering most of the major concepts of security, and the objectives did introduce one or two things that were new to me including the whole trusted OS thing with EAL levels. Encryption, VPNs, firewalls and security devices, etc was mostly old ground for me, but the book explains them nicely.

Personally, I like to study in two media - video for ideas, books to back them up. In this case I didn't need this, as the book was clear, engaging and explained concepts well. However, I found Professor Messer's free videos a great complement to Darril's book. Mostly I found the book more detailed, but at a few points Professor Messer goes into more depth. They're two masters of their trade, so taking both together, you can't go wrong. (Especially at a total study cost of £6.67!!)

 

Congrats on the pass The Zig. Sorry to Hijack, but what sort of Kindle do you use? Do the Study Guides scale well on it?

 

Congratulations

NB

 

Thanks!

@BB88: I think it's called the Kindle 3 or Kindle Keyboard. It's black, "qwerty" keyboard, 3G and wifi. Plays music if I shove it in my bag too roughly. Got it cheap off a friend who has to update the nanosecond something newer comes out.

Proper ebooks, like the Darril Gibson one off Amazon, or .mobis tend to read really well, as the text size is fixed and it just flows between the "pages" as required. In my experience so far, good Kindle ones tend to be well bookmarked too so you can jump around to the bit you want quickly - probably faster than a real book. Also, by clicking on pictures/diagrams you can get them to quite viewable full-screen.

However, .pdfs are less good. They have fixed text on set pages, so the pages get scaled. Alright for small-paged books like novels, but things like study books tend to have large pages. Then the text scaled down and it all becomes a bit of an eye-test. It's possible to zoom in and out, but awkward and clumsy and it makes navigating a hassle.

So in a nutshell - amazon books like Gibson's are decent on a Kindle and can be easier to read than a real book. PDFs (like the one I got off the disk on Meyer's Network+ book) can be a pain, and it's probably less hassle to just get a real book..

 

Thanks for that. Saved me from shelling out some cash with payday around the corner

 

Yeah as said with the Kindle if it's a proper ebook file it'll be fine and look/read well on the device, if it's a pdf not so much as above it will scale 1 page of the pdf to fit on the screen in one go which can make the text pretty small.

Wouldn't want to read a whole thing like that but is handy picking at bits in certain books.

 

I passed the Security+ yesterday, with a score of 830. I used a Kindle version of Darril Gibson's book accompanied with videos from Prof Messer, and I used Transcender as a testing engine

Good luck

 

Well done!

You used the same resources as me! Except I didn't use Transcender. I just used the questions in the Darril Gibson book - with like, 25 at the end of each chapter, 50 at the start and 100 at the end, it was nearly, like, 500 questions! (That was one of the things I liked about it.)

 

There are a few good free tests on myitstudy website for CompTIA exams. Worth checking out.

 

I am happy to share good study materials:-

Books:-

CompTIA Security+ Get Certified Get Ahead: SY0-501 Study Guide
CompTIA Security+ Study Guide: Exam SY0-501
CompTIA Security+ Certification Practice Exams: (Exam SY0 - 401) 2nd Edition
CompTIA Security+ Certification Study Guide, Third Edition (Exam SY0-501)

Active on forums:-

• Techexams
• Professormesser
• Cybrary

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