The CompTIA SY0-501 Exam is challenging and thorough preparation is essential for success. This exam study guide is designed to help you prepare for the Security+ certification exam. It contains a detailed list of the topics covered on the Professional exam, as well as a detailed list of preparation resources. These study guide for the CompTIA Security+ will help guide you through the study process for your certification.
SY0-501 CompTIA Security+ Exam Summary
● Exam Name: CompTIA Security+
● Exam Code: SY0-501
● Exam Price: $370 (USD)
● Duration: 90 mins
● Number of Questions: 90
● Passing Score: 750 / 900
● Schedule Exam: CompTIA Marketplace
● Sample Questions: CompTIA Security+ Sample Questions
● Recommended Practice: CompTIA SY0-501 Certification Practice Exam
Exam Syllabus: SY0-501 CompTIA Security+
Threats, Attacks and Vulnerabilities - 21%
Given a scenario, analyze indicators of compromise
and determine the type of malware.
- Viruses
- Crypto-malware
- Ransomware
- Worm
- Trojan
- Rootkit
- Keylogger
- Adware
- Spyware
- Bots
- RAT
- Logic bomb
- Backdoor
Compare and contrast types of attacks.
1. Social engineering
● Phishing
● Spear phishing
● Whaling
● Vishing
● Tailgating
● Impersonation
● Dumpster diving
● Shoulder surfing
● Hoax
● Watering hole attack
● Principles (reasons for effectiveness)
● Authority
● Intimidation
● Consensus
● Scarcity
● Familiarity
● Trust
● Urgency
2. Application/service attacks
● DoS
● DDoS
● Man-in-the-middle
● Buffer overflow
● Injection
● Cross-site scripting
● Cross-site request forgery
● Privilege escalation
● ARP poisoning
● Amplification
● DNS poisoning
● Domain hijacking
● Man-in-the-browser
● Zero day
● Replay
● Pass the hash
● Hijacking and related attacks
● Clickjacking
● Session hijacking
● URL hijacking
● Typo squatting
● Driver manipulation
● Shimming
● Refactoring
● MAC spoofing
● IP spoofing
3. Wireless attacks
● Replay
● IV
● Evil twin
● Rogue AP
● Jamming
● WPS
● Bluejacking
● Bluesnarfing
● RFID
● NFC
● Disassociation
4. Cryptographic attacks
● Birthday
● Known plain text/cipher text
● Rainbow tables
● Dictionary
● Brute force
● Online vs. offline
● Collision
● Downgrade
● Replay
● Weak implementations
Explain threat actor types and attributes.
1. Types of actors
● Script kiddies
● Hacktivist
● Organized crime
● Nation states/APT
● Insiders
● Competitors
2. Attributes of actors
● Internal/external
● Level of sophistication
● Resources/funding
● Intent/motivation
3. Use of open-source intelligence
Explain penetration testing concepts.
- Active reconnaissance
- Passive reconnaissance
- Pivot
- Initial exploitation
- Persistence
- Escalation of privilege
- Black box
- White box
- Gray box
- Penetration testing vs. vulnerability scanning
Explain vulnerability scanning concepts.
- Passively test security controls
- Identify vulnerability
- Identify lack of security controls
- Identify common misconfigurations
- Intrusive vs. non-intrusive
- Credentialed vs. non-credentialed
- False positive
Explain the impact associated with types of vulnerabilities.
1. Race conditions
2. Vulnerabilities due to:
● End-of-life systems
● Embedded systems
● Lack of vendor support
3. Improper input handling
4. Improper error handling
5. Misconfiguration/weak configuration
6. Default configuration
7. Resource exhaustion
8. Untrained users
9. Improperly configured accounts
10. Vulnerable business processes
11. Weak cipher suites and implementations
12. Memory/buffer vulnerability
● Memory leak
● Integer overflow
● Buffer overflow
● Pointer dereference
● DLL injection
13. System sprawl/undocumented assets
14. Architecture/design weaknesses
15. New threats/zero day
16. Improper certificate and key management
Technologies and Tools - 22%
Install and configure network components, both hardwareand software-based, to support organizational security.
1. Firewall
● ACL
● Application-based vs. network-based
● Stateful vs. stateless
● Implicit deny
2. VPN concentrator
● Remote access vs. site-to-site
● IPSec
● Tunnel mode
● Transport mode
● AH
● ESP
● Split tunnel vs. full tunnel
● TLS
● Always-on VPN
3. NIPS/NIDS
● Signature-based
● Heuristic/behavioral
● Anomaly
● Inline vs. passive
● In-band vs. out-of-band
● Rules
● Analytics
● False positive
● False negative
4. Router
● ACLs
● Antispoofing
5. Switch
● Port security
● Layer 2 vs. Layer 3
● Loop prevention
● Flood guard
6. Proxy
● Forward and reverse proxy
● Transparent
● Application/multipurpose
7. Load balancer
● Scheduling
● Affinity
● Round-robin
● Active-passive
● Active-active
● Virtual IPs
8. Access point
● SSID
● MAC filtering
● Signal strength
● Band selection/width
● Antenna types and placement
● Fat vs. thin
● Controller-based vs. standalone
9. SIEM
● Aggregation
● Correlation
● Automated alerting and triggers
● Time synchronization
● Event deduplication
● Logs/WORM
10. DLP
● USB blocking
● Cloud-based
11. NAC
● Dissolvable vs. permanent
● Host health checks
● Agent vs. agentless
12. Mail gateway
● Spam filter
● DLP
● Encryption
13. Bridge
14. SSL/TLS accelerators
15. SSL decryptors
16. Media gateway
17. Hardware security module
Given a scenario, use appropriate software tools to assess the security posture of an organization.
1. Protocol analyzer
2. Network scanners
● Rogue system detection
● Network mapping
3. Wireless scanners/cracker
4. Password cracker
5. Vulnerability scanner
6. Configuration compliance scanner
7. Exploitation frameworks
8. Data sanitization tools
9. Steganography tools
10. Honeypot
11. Backup utilities
12. Banner grabbing
13. Passive vs. active
14. Command line tools
● ping
● netstat
● tracert
● nslookup/dig
● arp
● ipconfig/ip/ifconfig
● tcpdump
● nmap
● netcat
Given a scenario, troubleshoot common security issues.
1. Unencrypted credentials/clear text
2. Logs and events anomalies
3. Permission issues
4. Access violations
5. Certificate issues
6. Data exfiltration
7. Misconfigured devices
● Firewall
● Content filter
● Access points
8. Weak security configurations
9. Personnel issues
● Policy violation
● Insider threat
● Social engineering
● Social media
● Personal email
10. Unauthorized software
11. Baseline deviation
12. License compliance violation (availability/integrity)
13. Asset management
14. Authentication issues
Given a scenario, analyze and interpret output from security technologies.
1. HIDS/HIPS
2. Antivirus
3. File integrity check
4. Host-based firewall
5. Application whitelisting
6. Removable media control
7. Advanced malware tools
8. Patch management tools
9. UTM
10. DLP
11. Data execution prevention
12. Web application firewall
Given a scenario, deploy mobile devices securely.
1. Connection methods
● Cellular
● WiFi
● SATCOM
● Bluetooth
● NFC
● ANT
● Infrared
● USB
2. Mobile device management concepts
● Application management
● Content management
● Remote wipe
● Geofencing
● Geolocation
● Screen locks
● Push notification services
● Passwords and pins
● Biometrics
● Context-aware authentication
● Containerization
● Storage segmentation
● Full device encryption
3. Enforcement and monitoring for:
● Third-party app stores
● Rooting/jailbreaking
● Sideloading
● Custom firmware
● Carrier unlocking
● Firmware OTA updates
● Camera use
● SMS/MMS
● External media
● USB OTG
● Recording microphone
● GPS tagging
● WiFi direct/ad hoc
● Tethering
● Payment methods
4. Deployment models
● BYOD
● COPE
● CYOD
● Corporate-owned
● VDI
Given a scenario, implement secure protocols.
1. Protocols
● DNSSEC
● SSH
● S/MIME
● SRTP
● LDAPS
● FTPS
● SFTP
● SNMPv3
● SSL/TLS
● HTTPS
● Secure POP/IMAP
2. Use cases
● Voice and video
● Time synchronization
● Email and web
● File transfer
● Directory services
● Remote access
● Domain name resolution
● Routing and switching
● Network address allocation
● Subscription services
Architecture and Design - 15%
Explain use cases and purpose for frameworks, best practices and secure configuration guides.
1. Industry-standard frameworks and reference architectures
● Regulatory
● Non-regulatory
● National vs. international
● Industry-specific frameworks
2. Benchmarks/secure configuration guides
● Platform/vendor-specific guides
● Web server
● Operating system
● Application server
● Network infrastructure devices
● General purpose guides
3. Defense-in-depth/layered security
● Vendor diversity
● Control diversity
● Administrative
● Technical
● User training
Given a scenario, implement secure network architecture concepts.
1. Zones/topologies
● DMZ
● Extranet
● Intranet
● Wireless
● Guest
● Honeynets
● NAT
● Ad hoc
2. Segregation/segmentation/isolation
● Physical
● Logical (VLAN)
● Virtualization
● Air gaps
3. Tunneling/VPN
● Site-to-site
● Remote access
4. Security device/technology placement
● Sensors
● Collectors
● Correlation engines
● Filters
● Proxies
● Firewalls
● VPN concentrators
● SSL accelerators
● Load balancers
● DDoS mitigator
● Aggregation switches
● Taps and port mirror
5. SDN
Given a scenario, implement secure systems design.
1. Hardware/firmware security
● FDE/SED
● TPM
● HSM
● UEFI/BIOS
● Secure boot and attestation
● Supply chain
● Hardware root of trust
● EMI/EMP
2. Operating systems
● Types
● Network
● Server
● Workstation
● Appliance
● Kiosk
● Mobile OS
● Patch management
● Disabling unnecessary ports and services
● Least functionality
● Secure configurations
● Trusted operating system
● Application whitelisting/blacklisting
● Disable default accounts/passwords
3. Peripherals
● Wireless keyboards
● Wireless mice
● Displays
● WiFi-enabled MicroSD cards
● Printers/MFDs
● External storage devices
● Digital cameras
Explain the importance of secure staging deployment concepts.
1. Sandboxing
2. Environment
● Development
● Test
● Staging
● Production
3. Secure baseline
4. Integrity measurement
Explain the security implications of embedded systems.
1. SCADA/ICS
2. Smart devices/IoT
● Wearable technology
● Home automation
3. HVAC
4. SoC
5. RTOS
6. Printers/MFDs
7. Camera systems
8. Special purpose
● Medical devices
● Vehicles
● Aircraft/UAV
Summarize secure application development and deployment concepts.
1. Development life-cycle models
● Waterfall vs. Agile
2. Secure DevOps
● Security automation
● Continuous integration
● Baselining
● Immutable systems
● Infrastructure as code
3. Version control and change management
4. Provisioning and deprovisioning
5. Secure coding techniques
● Proper error handling
● Proper input validation
● Normalization
● Stored procedures
● Code signing
● Encryption
● Obfuscation/camouflage
● Code reuse/dead code
● Server-side vs. client-side execution and validation
● Memory management
● Use of third-party libraries and SDKs
● Data exposure
6. Code quality and testing
● Static code analyzers
● Dynamic analysis (e.g., fuzzing)
● Stress testing
● Sandboxing
● Model verification
7. Compiled vs. runtime code
Summarize cloud and virtualization concepts
1. Hypervisor
● Type I
● Type II
● Application cells/containers
2. VM sprawl avoidance
3. VM escape protection
4. Cloud storage
5. Cloud deployment models
● SaaS
● PaaS
● IaaS
● Private
● Public
● Hybrid
● Community
6. On-premise vs. hosted vs. cloud
7. VDI/VDE
8. Cloud access security broker
9. Security as a Service
Explain how resiliency and automation strategies reduce risk.
1. Automation/scripting
● Automated courses of action
● Continuous monitoring
● Configuration validation
2. Templates
3. Master image
4. Non-persistence
● Snapshots
● Revert to known state
● Rollback to known configuration
● Live boot media
5. Elasticity
6. Scalability
7. Distributive allocation
8. Redundancy
9. Fault tolerance
10. High availability
11. RAID
Explain the importance of physical security controls.
1. Lighting
2. Signs
3. Fencing/gate/cage
4. Security guards
5. Alarms
6. Safe
7. Secure cabinets/enclosures
8. Protected distribution/Protected cabling
9. Airgap
10. Mantrap
11. Faraday cage
12. Lock types
13. Biometrics
14. Barricades/bollards
15. Tokens/cards
16. Environmental controls
● HVAC
● Hot and cold aisles
● Fire suppression
17. Cable locks
18. Screen filters
19. Cameras
20. Motion detection
21. Logs
22. Infrared detection
23. Key management
Identity and Access Management - 16%
Compare and contrast identity and access management concepts
1. Identification, authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA)
2. Multifactor authentication
● Something you are
● Something you have
● Something you know
● Somewhere you are
● Something you do
3. Federation
4. Single sign-on
5. Transitive trust
Given a scenario, install and configure identity and access services
- LDAP
- Kerberos
- TACACS+
- CHAP
- PAP
- MSCHAP
- RADIUS
- SAML
- OpenID Connect
- OAUTH
- Shibboleth
- Secure token
- NTLM
Given a scenario, implement identity and access management controls.
1. Access control models
● MAC
● DAC
● ABAC
● Role-based access control
● Rule-based access control
2. Physical access control
● Proximity cards
● Smart cards
3. Biometric factors
● Fingerprint scanner
● Retinal scanner
● Iris scanner
● Voice recognition
● Facial recognition
● False acceptance rate
● False rejection rate
● Crossover error rate
4. Tokens
● Hardware
● Software
● HOTP/TOTP
5. Certificate-based authentication
● PIV/CAC/smart card
● IEEE 802.1x
6. File system security
7. Database security
Given a scenario, differentiate common account management practices.
1. Account types
● User account
● Shared and generic accounts/credentials
● Guest accounts
● Service accounts
● Privileged accounts
2. General Concepts
● Least privilege
● Onboarding/offboarding
● Permission auditing and review
● Usage auditing and review
● Time-of-day restrictions
● Recertification
● Standard naming convention
● Account maintenance
● Group-based access control
● Location-based policies
3. Account policy enforcement
● Credential management
● Group policy
● Password complexity
● Expiration
● Recovery
● Disablement
● Lockout
● Password history
● Password reuse
● Password length
Risk Management - 14%
Explain the importance of policies, plans and procedures related to organizational security
1. Standard operating procedure
2. Agreement types
● BPA
● SLA
● ISA
● MOU/MOA
3. Personnel management
● Mandatory vacations
● Job rotation
● Separation of duties
● Clean desk
● Background checks
● Exit interviews
● Role-based awareness training
● Data owner
● System administrator
● System owner
● User
● Privileged user
● Executive user
● NDA
● Onboarding
● Continuing education
● Acceptable use policy/rules of behavior
● Adverse actions
4. General security policies
● Social media networks/applications
● Personal email
● Summarize business impact analysis concepts. 1. RTO/RPO
2. MTBF
3. MTTR
4. Mission-essential functions
5. Identification of critical systems
6. Single point of failure
7. Impact
● Life
● Property
● Safety
● Finance
● Reputation
8. Privacy impact assessment
9. Privacy threshold assessment
Explain risk management processes and concepts.
1. Threat assessment
● Environmental
● Manmade
● Internal vs. external
2. Risk assessment
● SLE
● ALE
● ARO
● Asset value
● Risk register
● Likelihood of occurrence
● Supply chain assessment
● Impact
● Quantitative
● Qualitative
● Testing
● Penetration testing authorization
● Vulnerability testing
● authorization
● Risk response techniques
● Accept
● Transfer
● Avoid
● Mitigate
3. Change management
Given a scenario, follow incident response procedures.
1. Incident response plan
● Documented incident types/category definitions
● Roles and responsibilities
● Reporting requirements/escalation
● Cyber-incident response teams
● Exercise
2. Incident response process
● Preparation
● Identification
● Containment
● Eradication
● Recovery
● Lessons learned
Summarize basic concepts of forensics.
1. Order of volatility
2. Chain of custody
3. Legal hold
4. Data acquisition
● Capture system image
● Network traffic and logs
● Capture video
● Record time offset
● Take hashes
● Screenshots
● Witness interviews
5. Preservation
6. Recovery
7. Strategic intelligence/ counterintelligence gathering
● Active logging
8. Track man-hours
Explain disaster recovery and continuity of operation concepts.
1. Recovery sites
● Hot site
● Warm site
● Cold site
2. Order of restoration
3. Backup concepts
● Differential
● Incremental
● Snapshots
● Full
4. Geographic considerations
● Off-site backups
● Distance
● Location selection
● Legal implications
● Data sovereignty
5. Continuity of operation planning
● Exercises/tabletop
● After-action reports
● Failover
● Alternate processing sites
● Alternate business practices
Compare and contrast various types of controls.
- Deterrent
- Preventive
- Detective
- Corrective
- Compensating
- Technical
- Administrative
- Physical
Given a scenario, carry out data security and privacy practices.
1. Data destruction and media sanitization
● Burning
● Shredding
● Pulping
● Pulverizing
● Degaussing
● Purging
● Wiping
2. Data sensitivity labeling and handling
● Confidential
● Private
● Public
● Proprietary
● PII
● PHI
3. Data roles
● Owner
● Steward/custodian
● Privacy officer
4. Data retention
5. Legal and compliance
Cryptography and PKI - 12%
Compare and contrast basic concepts of cryptography.
1. Symmetric algorithms
2. Modes of operation
3. Asymmetric algorithms
4. Hashing
5. Salt, IV, nonce
6. Elliptic curve
7. Weak/deprecated algorithms
8. Key exchange
9. Digital signatures
10. Diffusion
11. Confusion
12. Collision
13. Steganography
14. Obfuscation
15. Stream vs. block
16. Key strength
17. Session keys
18. Ephemeral key
19. Secret algorithm
20. Data-in-transit
21. Data-at-rest
22. Data-in-use
23. Random/pseudo-random number generation
24. Key stretching
25. Implementation vs. algorithm selection
● Crypto service provider
● Crypto modules
26. Perfect forward secrecy
27. Security through obscurity
28. Common use cases
● Low power devices
● Low latency
● High resiliency
● Supporting confidentiality
● Supporting integrity
● Supporting obfuscation
● Supporting authentication
● Supporting non-repudiation
● Resource vs. security constraints
Explain cryptography algorithms and their basic characteristics.
1. Symmetric algorithms
● AES
● DES
● 3DES
● RC4
● Blowfish/Twofish
2. Cipher modes
● CBC
● GCM
● ECB
● CTR
● Stream vs. block
3. Asymmetric algorithms
● RSA
● DSA
● Diffie-Hellman
● Groups
● DHE
● ECDHE
● Elliptic curve
● PGP/GPG
4. Hashing algorithms
● MD5
● SHA
● HMAC
● RIPEMD
5. Key stretching algorithms
● BCRYPT
● PBKDF2
6. Obfuscation
● XOR
● ROT13
● Substitution ciphers
Given a scenario, install and configure wireless security settings.
1. Cryptographic protocols
● WPA
● WPA2
● CCMP
● TKIP
2. Authentication protocols
● EAP
● PEAP
● EAP-FAST
● EAP-TLS
● EAP-TTLS
● IEEE 802.1x
● RADIUS Federation
3. Methods
● PSK vs. Enterprise vs. Open
● WPS
● Captive portals
Given a scenario, implement public key infrastructure.
1. Components
● CA
● Intermediate CA
● CRL
● OCSP
● CSR
● Certificate
● Public key
● Private key
● Object identifiers (OID)
2. Concepts
● Online vs. offline CA
● Stapling
● Pinning
● Trust model
● Key escrow
● Certificate chaining
3. Types of certificates
● Wildcard
● SAN
● Code signing
● Self-signed
● Machine/computer
● User
● Root
● Domain validation
● Extended validation
4. Certificate formats
● DER
● PEM
● PFX
● CER
● P12
● P7B
CompTIA SY0-501 Certification Sample Questions and Answers
To make you familiar with the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-501) certification exam structure, we have prepared this sample question set. We suggest you to try our Sample Questions for Security Plus SY0-501 Certification to test your understanding of CompTIA SY0-501process with real CompTIA certification exam environment.
SY0-501 CompTIA Security+ Sample Questions:-
01. Company A has just developed a bespoke system for booking airline tickets. What is it called if a freelance coding specialist tests it for security flaws?
a) Code review
b) Static code review
c) Regression testing
d) Dynamic code review
02. A security engineer wants to implement a site-to-site VPN that will require SSL certificates for mutual authentication. Which of the following will you choose?
a) L2TP/IPSec
b) SSL VPN
c) PPTP VPN
d) IKEv2 VPN
03. Recently, a company has been facing an issue with shoulder surfing. Which of the following safeguards would help with this?
a) Screen filters
b) Biometric authentication
c) Smart cards
d) Video cameras
04. Which of the following if used would BEST reduce the number of successful phishing attacks?
a) Two-factor authentication
b) Application layer firewall
c) Mantraps
d) User training
05. Which of the following is a measure of reliability?
a) MTTR
b) MTBF
c) MTTF
d) RPO
06. An input field that is accepting more data than has been allocated for it in memory is an attribute of:
a) buffer overflow.
b) memory leak.
c) cross-site request forgery.
d) resource exhaustion.
07. The process of presenting a user ID to a validating system is known as:
a) authorization.
b) authentication.
c) identification.
d) single sign-on.
08. A security administrator discovers that an attacker used a compromised host as a platform for launching attacks deeper into a company's network.
What terminology BEST describes the use of the compromised host?
a) Brute force
b) Active reconnaissance
c) Pivoting
d) Passing point
09. A system administrator is configuring accounts on a newly established server. Which of the following characteristics BEST differentiates service accounts from other types of accounts?
a) They can often be restricted in privilege.
b) They are meant for non-person entities.
c) They require special permissions to OS files and folders.
d) They remain disabled in operations.
e) They do not allow passwords to be set.
10. Joe, a security analyst, is asked by a co-worker, "What is this AAA thing all about in the security world? Sounds like something I can use for my car."
Which of the following terms should Joe discuss in his response to his co-worker?
(Select THREE).
a) Accounting
b) Accountability
c) Authorization
d) Authentication
e) Access
f) Agreement
Answers:-
Answer 1:- c
Answer 2:- b
Answer 3:- a
Answer 4:- d
Answer 5:- b
Answer 6:- a
Answer 7:- c
Answer 8:- c
Answer 9:- b
Answer 10:- a, c, d