CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701)

Objectives in this domain

• Compare types of security controls (technical, preventive, managerial, deterrent, operational, detective, physical, corrective, compensating, directive).
• Summarize core tenets (CIA and non-repudiation), AAA concepts, zero trust, and deception/disruption techniques.
• Explain change management processes, business/technical impacts, documentation needs, and version control.
• Apply cryptographic approaches such as PKI, encryption, obfuscation, hashing, digital signatures, and blockchain.

Objectives in this domain

• Differentiate common threat actors and motives (e.g., nation-states, unskilled attackers, hacktivists, insiders, organized crime, shadow IT; goals like exfiltration, espionage, financial gain).
• Describe threat vectors and attack surfaces (message-based, insecure networks, social engineering, file-based, voice calls, supply chain, vulnerable software).
• Explain vulnerability categories (application, hardware, mobile, virtualization, OS, cloud, web, supply chain).
• Analyze malicious activities (malware, password, application, physical, network, and cryptographic attacks).
• Select mitigation techniques (segmentation, access control, configuration enforcement, hardening, isolation, patching).

Objectives in this domain

• Compare architecture models (on‑premises, cloud, virtualization, IoT, ICS, IaC).
• Apply security principles to enterprise infrastructure, control selection, and secure communications/access.
• Differentiate data types and classifications and select appropriate protection methods and considerations.
• Describe resilience and recovery (high availability, site strategies, testing, power, platform diversity, backups, continuity of operations).

Objectives in this domain

• Harden and monitor computing resources using secure baselines, mobile solutions, wireless and application security, and sandboxing.
• Manage assets across acquisition, assignment, tracking/monitoring, and disposal for hardware, software, and data.
• Run a vulnerability management lifecycle (identify, analyze, remediate, validate, report).
• Explain alerting and monitoring tools and typical activities on computing resources.
• Adjust enterprise defenses (firewalls, IDS/IPS, DNS filtering, DLP, NAC, EDR/XDR).
• Implement identity and access management (provisioning, SSO, MFA, privileged access tools).
• Use automation/orchestration and scripting appropriately, with benefits and considerations.
• Execute incident response (processes, training, testing, root cause analysis, threat hunting, digital forensics).
• Leverage logs and other data sources to support investigations.

Objectives in this domain

• Summarize security governance (guidelines, policies, standards, procedures, external factors, monitoring, governance structures, roles/responsibilities).
• Explain risk management (identification, assessment/analysis, register, tolerance/appetite, strategies, reporting, BIA).
• Manage third‑party risk (vendor assessment/selection, agreements, monitoring, questionnaires, rules of engagement).
• Address security compliance (reporting, consequences of non‑compliance, monitoring, privacy).
• Differentiate audits and assessments (attestation, internal/external audits, penetration testing).
• Implement security awareness (phishing training, anomaly recognition, user guidance, reporting, monitoring).