Well, let's do this:

Around 3 months ago, I took the Cisco CBROPS (200-201) exam and I failed. The score was not that bad -720 but passing was 820-, but then moved on to something else. That something was Comptia CySA+ (CS0-002) and passed the exam. I am not going to lie, it was tough and I believe taking the Security+ and the Network+exam helped me with CySA+. The study material consists of one book, videos from Jason Dion, and some exam prep questions from the book. However, I believe that 20-30% of the material that I learned came from CBROPS material that I studied 3 months ago. So, the study material below is the minimum for you to pass the exam with a low score. If you want to take it, then you should be familiar with security topics and networking. I barely passed, but I did my best to study the exam in less than 8 weeks.

Without further ado, let me tell you what I used to pass the exam...

I started to study in the first week of January 2021 and I read some good reviews from CompTIA subreddit. Jason Dion was recommended. I took a chance and went to Udemy and spent like $14. Of course, there is always a sale at Udemy and I believe you can go to Jason Dion’s web site to purchase more helpful materials. The hype is real and the instructor did a great job explaining topics and using his experience to explain how the topics are interconnected with our lives. The total hours of the videos are like 32 hours but there are times where I had to pause and rewind a couple of times. So maybe I spend like 40 hours on the videos and extra 2 hours on the exam prep. Worth every penny.

The other alternative was Mike Chapple's CySA+ cert prep course at LinkedIn's Learning or Lynda.com. It's okay and does a good job with the topics, but Dion did a fantastic job that in my opinion it was the best value.

For the book, I just purchased the cheapest one I could find at amazon. The price was like $30 for a used book; however, it had an unused access code for some practice questions. The book, CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CySA+) CS0-002 Cert Guide (Certification Guide) 2nd Edition (by Troy McMillan) was easy to read. The questions, if you use the access code or the book, were plentiful. The book had plenty of questions and at the end of the book had the answers and explaining why it was correct. Sadly, the price is now like in the $40's range.

I did not purchase a practice test book that had hundreds of questions, but if you ask me, I would recommend that you should check out MikeCert.com and check out his books. If you can find a cheaper book and good reviews, then I would recommend it, because I believe you need to read, watch, and use hands on experience in order to pass the exam.

Before I go on, I have to do an honorable mention. I bough The Complete CompTIA 2021 Certification Bundle at StackSocial during the 2020 black Friday special. The price $20.70, but the bundle included the CySA+ CS0-001 and not the recent CS0-002. Bummer. The good news is that it had a 20% off CompTIA voucher code. So instead off paying $370, I only paid $294. I should do an iCollege.co review one of these days. Sadly, the offer is gone and lately I’m getting too much spam from this web site to purchase more.

And finally the not so honorable mention: There is no Android educational app for the CySA+. I thought I found a good one from MagicBytes Soft, but it turns out that that app copied many questions from Mike Chapple and David Seidl's CompTIA CySA+ Practice Tests: Exam CS0-002, and some questions from Dion Training. I thought the questions were great until I looked at one of the questions that said "if you look at the page..." and I was like...what?!? what page? What is this question referencing? The app was like $10, but I knew the money I spent did not go to the people who wrote the questions. Well the questions were professionally written, but I knew after practicing 200 questions that these were ripped from a book.

Well that's it, the next time I will write how I passed the CBROPS exam...I hope.

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