CompTIA SY0-501 is a certification exam that validates the skills that any IT professionals requires to carry out to advance their IT security career.

If you want to enhance your security career, you are strongly advised to earn the CompTIA Security+ credential. It checks if you have the crucial knowledge needed in ensuring cybersecurity. Also, it strengthens your position in getting hired for intermediate-level cybersecurity jobs.

The CompTIA SY0-501 exam includes a wide range of hands-on tasks so that you have the practical skills for solving any given problems. As a cybersecurity professional, you are required to be able to address security incidents, not only to identify them. The certification test consists of 90 multiple-choice and performance-based questions with the time-limit of 90 minutes. It is available in English, Portuguese, Chinese, and Japanese.

The exam focuses on the latest trends and techniques in risk management. This means that if you are going to excel in it, then you must be always up-to-date with what is going on in your field. What are the latest intrusion detection, threat management, and risk mitigation techniques? These are key concepts, which every IT professional ought to be aware of. In particular, the following specialist are target audience: Security Administrators, Network Administrators, and Systems Administrators.

Exam topics:

• Architecture and design: The candidates are expected to be well-equipped with knowledge in implementing secure network architecture concepts and secure systems design, summarizing virtualization and cloud concepts, and etc.
• Identity and access management: The focus of this section is mainly on cryptography, account management, identity and authentication, public key infrastructure, and identity and access services.
• Threats, vulnerabilities, and attacks: Every IT security professional should be able to deal with this field. The exam tests one on critical security controls, incident response, indicators of compromise, and security posture assessment tools.
• Risk management: This part focuses on forensics, organizational security, disaster recovery, and secure application development.
• Technologies and tools: The exam candidates must be skilled in installing and configuring network components, troubleshooting common security problems, implementing secure protocols, and etc.

One has to pay $339 to take this CompTIA exam.