Cybersecurity is a critical consideration for modern organizations. The digital and IT landscape has evolved, with individuals and businesses relying heavily on their digital presence even for daily tasks. Unfortunately, this has occurred in tandem with a rise in the number of cybercrimes and malicious attacks threatening to blindside the unprepared.
All this has led to several pressures on modern organizations, with major PR and financial penalties threatening those who fail to meet cybersecurity compliance targets. At the same time, these pressures will only continue to evolve, requiring organizations to think carefully about how to handle upcoming challenges and make ongoing security as sustainable and reliable as possible.
CompTIA is one of the world’s premier IT training organizations. It aims to support the industry by supplying relevant training to fill pressing skills gaps, with cybersecurity being one of its primary areas of focus. Indeed, with cybersecurity being one of the biggest priorities of modern IT, CompTIA has created a number of courses specifically geared towards giving specialist candidates the training and verification they need to thrive in challenging, exciting, and lucrative job roles.
In this article, we explore the various courses of the CompTIA Cybersecurity Pathway.
What Does the CompTIA Cybersecurity Pathway Include?
The courses of the Cybersecurity Pathway are aligned with the skills and perspectives required for cybersecurity specialists. The courses themselves do not have prerequisites and can be taken in any order. That being said, candidates are advised to check the recommended level of knowledge and experience for any exam before making a booking.
CompTIA PenTest+
CompTIA PenTest+ is designed for professionals in penetration testing and vulnerability management. It covers all staging of penetration testing with both performance and knowledge-based questions. It also takes a uniquely expansive look at vulnerability management, including assessment, support, and analysis.
Successful candidates can verify their practical ability to scope, plan, manage, and exploit weaknesses. As the syllabus covers new areas of interest such as hybrid and cloud environments, it is doubly relevant for anyone interested in pursuing cybersecurity as a long-term career choice.
According to PayScale, the Average Base Salary for Penetration Testers is approximately $88,012.
CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP+)
CompTIA CASP+ is intended for security architects, senior security engineers, and anyone else seeking to build or verify their understanding of how to oversee and improve an organization’s cybersecurity. These skills are seeing a continuous increase in demand from organizations across the world, making it a lucrative specialization for those considering further IT training.
Unlike many competitors, CASP+ is intended more for practitioners than managers. That is not to say that managers cannot benefit from studying CASP+, though it is primarily a performance-based qualification designed to help users actually implement solutions aligned with frameworks and organizational strategies. It also covers security architecture and engineering, making it an excellent choice for candidates eyeing high-level roles in cybersecurity.
In passing the CASP+ exam, a candidate can verify their ability to design and implement solutions based on an organization’s bespoke cybersecurity requirements.
According to PayScale, the average base salary for CASP+ practitioners is approximately $93,000.
Relevant roles include:
- Cybersecurity Analyst
- Cybersecurity Engineer
- Information Security Manager
- Systems Administrator
- Information Security Engineer
CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CySA+)
CompTIA CySA+ is an IT workforce qualification demonstrating how to apply behavioral analytics to networks and devices. Candidates can use this to drive continuous security monitoring in order to detect and deal with a variety of cybersecurity threats.
While the qualification itself focuses on intermediate and high-stakes perspectives, it still teaches hands-on skills and tests both the knowledge and practical ability of candidates. It is also a holistic qualification, covering elements such as capturing, monitoring, and responding to findings from network traffic, as well as application and software security, automation, compliance, threat hunting, and more. All of this makes the course ideal for anyone seeking to work in positions related to security analysis.
The syllabus itself was recently updated to include the most relevant skills and areas of concern for application analysts, threat intelligence analysts, incident responders and handlers, compliance analysts, and threat hunters. Passing the exam verifies a candidate’s ability to deal with the most pressing threats in cybersecurity.
According to PayScale, the average base salary for Cyber Security Analysts is approximately $77,144.
