CompTIA Security+ All-in-One Exam Guide: Exam SY0-401 4th Edition

Had a "slight" delivery issue with this item. Amazon was outstanding though. For "Prime" members, I would NOT use USPS to deliver diddly squat! My guaranteed two day delivery finally got to my home, eight days after leaving Amazon's hands. They resent it via UPS a couple days after it "should" have been delivered. And I STILL got that one before the original shipment by three days. But they paid for shipping back. THAT SAID!BOTH books were in great shape when delivered. It will help me get re-certified (yes I know, in the real world, once certified, always certified), but I'm in a different world....I have to recertify every couple to three years. Makes sense, due to upgrades and other updates, but still....it's costly. If not to me but to my employer which eventually comes back to....well...ME. I used this author's books for my original certification and I sailed through the test, I expect nothing less in this iteration. I'm about a chapter through (cause I'm working while studying) but expect to take the test again within this season. I'll update as needed (but it'll probably be my doing and not this authors).

This is a fantastic book. Very easy to read and very informative. It makes most concepts so simple that I almost couldn't believe that it was informative enough. However, after going through the review sets from the internet (Quizlet), I realized how much I actually learned. To be fair though, I recently took and passed the Network+ Exam, which does cover a fair amount of security concepts.The PDF version of the book that comes with it is also very useful, in that I can take it on the go with my tablet and not need to carry a book around. I haven't tried the practice exams that came with the book.After reading [most of] this textbook, I'm both very excited and very confident about the exam!

I did pass the exam my first time, but I ended up using multiple study aids. This guide is great to get a basic understanding of the principles of network security, but it isn't a great test guide.

So far I am really enjoying using this as my Go To study material for preparing for the CompTIA certification. It is easy to understand and broken down into digestible sections with helpful review questions. Have yet to use the included CD material but so far I am very confident that this will prepare me for the certification exam.UPDATE (1/27/2017):After making my way through the whole book, reviewing the test questions on each section, and using the CD for the practice tests I have taken and passed the CompTIA Security+ exam. This book was my main source of material and undoubtedly contributed to my success and certification. Would highly recommend for anyone looking to go the Security+ route.

I read 3 books and I feel like this book really helped me the most in passing my test on my first try. Everything is organized great (by domain) and they mention things my other texts didn't. The glossary had some terms they don't explain in the book (other books don't even mention them), but with some research you can learn about them. (Some of those terms I was tested on.) They explained things multiple times when more than one domain covered the same thing. I found that very beneficial.Over all a fantastic book that I recommend for any one taking this exam. Especially if you're limited by time, because of the DoD.

This reads the way an overcooked bowl of rice, prepared and served without salt or butter or spice tastes. It may fill you up, but you will derive little to no enjoyment from it. It's ok if you are willing to plow through it, but it could have been so much better. Either for learning with better writing or for certification with better focus (ala Exam Cram's "refresher" stuff). Part of the nature of of these exams books is a certain level of bland/dryness, but I found these dryer than the Sybex ones for example.I picked this up just looking to see what the latest "trivia" definitions are in the market. You know what I mean... Exam certs are basically half legit "here's a concept" and half trivia of the form: "which arbitrary expansion of this acronym is correct: RFI - Radio Frequency Interference or RFI - Request For Information". These exams require about an 80% to pass, so even if you get 100% of the concepts correct, you still need a 60% pass on the "What have I got in my pocket?" gotchya trivia riddles. Who cares what color the 3.3V rail on an ATX power supply is? You hit google to look that up if you need to (orange btw) and you don't need to because you don't fix a $2 component in a $1000 system, you swap the whole assembly - or rather more junior guy does that, after he uses an ATX PS tester. If you are running a multimeter on stuff you didn't manufacture, you are almost certainly doing it wrong.Since I bought the kindle version, I'm also annoyed that they don't make as much use of the digital features as they could. For example, at numerous places there is something like "Blah blahs security blah blah OSI model". Why not make OSI tappable to bring up the OSI model graphic? I already know most of this stuff, so when I want to re-confirm trivia bits, why not make it easier? To be fair they do it in a couple places for some things, but that just underscores the omission when they don't.Even if you know all the material, or perhaps especially if you know the material as a professional and are just looking into the cert side of it, this is a dry dull read. While I can blitz through a novel on my kindle, this book was a slog which made the lack of tactile page flipping worse than in magazines or novels. Still, the kindle takes under an inch on the bookshelf no matter how many books you have, so it's still better if you are going to take your time with it.