Hello,
I've recently passed CSA+. As study material I've used the following:
CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CSA+) Study Guide (Sybex) + https://testbanks.wiley.com/
- even if it has several errors (most of them have already been addressed, the list of errata can be found here: Wiley: CompTIA CSA+ Study Guide: Exam CS0-001 - Mike Chapple, David Seidl), I think it's the best resource so far
- I found the labs useless and skipped them
- I liked it better than the Pearson IT Certification's book as it's more reader-friendly - gives more real life examples and URLs for more details on certain topics (resources that are actually useful)
- on the testbanks website are the questions from the quizes and also several bonus questions (that are not in the book)
CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CSA+) Cert Guide (Pearson IT Certification)
- follows closely the certification exam objectives, it literally takes every subject mentioned there and talks about it. I found this approach to be rigid and boring.
- there are some topics here that aren't mentioned in the Sybex book (certain types of attacks)
The free quizes and samples from GTS learning
- I only took the practice exam, it wasn't really helpful (not much different from the CertMaster questions or the quizes from the books) and had some typos too (something IP address-related)
The questions from CertMaster
- I bought the Deluxe edition for the retake and got access to CertMaster as well
- ok for reinforcing what you've learned
- no log analysis / hands-on questions
The questions from Transcender
- ok for reinforcing what you've learned
- several log analysis questions
I've used the certification exam objectives and made sure I understand each specified topic and know what each mentioned tool does / is used for.
Most of the questions were scenario-based - you were given some logs / output from some tool and had to interpret it, but there were several really straight-forward questions as well.
I studied for almost 2 months, ~5 hours a day. I have 1.5 years of experience as a security analyst and have also passed Security+, SSCP and CEH.
It was fun taking the exam![]()
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