CompTIA CySA+ (Cybersecurity Analyst) certification, with exam codes CS0-002 and CS0-003, is designed for cybersecurity professionals responsible for incident detection, prevention, and response through continuous security monitoring. Here are the key highlights of this certification:
- Industry Standard: CompTIA CySA+ is recognized as an industry standard for cybersecurity professionals.
- Current Trends: It focuses on current cybersecurity trends, including cloud and hybrid environments, ensuring you are well-equipped to tackle modern challenges.
- Incident Detection: CySA+ equips you with the skills to proactively monitor and detect indicators of malicious activity using advanced methods and tools like threat intelligence, SIEM, EDR, and XDR.
- Response to Threats: You will demonstrate your knowledge of incident response and vulnerability management processes and effective communication skills crucial for security analysis and compliance.
- Skills Covered: The certification covers security operations, vulnerability management, incident response and management, and reporting and communication.
- Career Opportunities: CySA+ opens doors to roles such as Security Architect, Cybersecurity Engineer, Threat Hunter, and more.
- Industry Contributors: The certification was developed with contributions from organizations like Northrop Grumman, Target, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Netflix, and Ricoh.
- Two Exam Versions: There are two exam versions, CS0-002 and CS0-003, with CS0-002 retiring on December 5, 2023.
- Exam Details: The exam consists of a maximum of 85 questions, including multiple-choice and performance-based questions, with a duration of 165 minutes. A passing score of 750 (on a scale of 100-900) is required. The recommended experience for CS0-002 is Network+, Security+, or equivalent knowledge, along with a minimum of 4 years of hands-on information security or related experience. For CS0-003, it recommends a minimum of 4 years of hands-on experience as an incident response analyst or security operations center (SOC) analyst or equivalent experience.
- Languages: The exams are available in English, with Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish versions to follow.
- Retirement: CS0-002 is set to retire on December 5, 2023, with the retirement date for CS0-003 yet to be determined.
- Testing Provider: Pearson VUE.
- Price: The exam costs $392 USD.
CompTIA CySA+ is marketed as a respected certification that equips cybersecurity professionals with the skills and knowledge needed to excel in the fields of incident detection, prevention, and response.
Difficulty: 2 out of 5.
CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst+ (CySA+) is intended to be a validation of knowledge for cyber folks who work in the incident response realm. And it does that... by checking to see if you can select the most correct answer on a multiple choice question. That's not to say there weren't practicals, but for the CS0-003 version of the exam, there were only three, and the most practical thing about it was selecting a hyperlink on the page to "run" a command in a Windows command terminal while looking about 40 entries in a log. The main purpose of the material covered by CySA+ is to make sure you are familiar with the processes and policies of a brand-new SOC Analyst. Expect lots of questions around PICERL or DAIR or NIST's IR steps, expect questions about how playbooks are used, and expect questions about managing threats. But don't expect to validate that you have the technical chops to do incident response.
If you want to prove you know the material AND can perform the actions, look elsewhere.
Pros
- It's a CompTIA cert, so it's recognizable by the HR Gods. And CySA+ is on a lot of job descriptions.
- The material for this certification is good information
- Price is reasonable for just the exam ($404 USD at time of writing)
- If you've already done some of the CompTIA Trifecta (A+, Net+, Sec+), you're going into familiar testing territory
- The US government freaking loves this certification.
Cons
- Rote memorization.
- Most training material you'll find online for free is dated. The only good training that won't break the bank is the CS0-003 book from Sybex . Sorry Jason Dion, but your stuff wasn't a good fit this time.
- Some of the answers you'll see on the practice exams will make you think you've been learning the wrong material. If you think Security Operations will trump Business Operations, you're living in a fantasy land.
- I did not personally do the labs for CySA+ offered by CompTIA, HOWEVER I'm nearly certain I used the same lab provider and environment for another course recently (29 July 2024 - 02 Aug 2024). And boy howdy, these labs were ABSOLUTE GARBAGE. You spend an unreasonable amount of time installing programs to use for about 2 minutes and then move on to do it again for a different program. Rinse, recycle, repeat. You're just going through the motions. There's no validation to apply what you've learned. You- the learner- are a circus monkey taught a routine in order to mimic some button clicks without understanding what you're actually doing or why. Do not pay CompTIA for their labs.
- The exam is predominantly multiple choice.
Difficulty: 2 out of 5.
Somewhat easy cert to do.
Did it after security+, 3 years later. Within 2 weeks with Jason Dion.
7 months later, hasn't really been much help for finding employment.
Don't really see jobs putting this as a req as much either.
Might be better to just focus on home projects to better show your knowledge for a junior position.
Difficulty: 3 out of 5.
I don't think this is a difficult certification but it will feel difficult at the point in your career when you're attempting it... which should be pretty early on. This certification is great for a junior SOC analyst to round out their knowledge when they're thinking about going for a promotion. You're going to get more advanced Security+ questions. That said, it's still a multiple choice CompTIA exam so it won't be too bad. You're not going to have to figure out especially difficult problems but you will have to look at logs.
A lot of logs.
More logs than you're expecting.
Like, your eyes will hurt.
Expect to get system or application logs and have to figure out what's happening. Over and over and over again.
It's kinda fun if you're into that sort of thing.
