Waiting on mine.

Rick Butler said:

Well, the first exam for A+ hit the books in 1993, and according to what we find on TestOut's website, it consisted of a single exam. So I guess @jasoneckert and I might have some conflicting information.

Reference: https://www.certmag.com/articles/25-years-past-present-possibly-troubled-future-popular-cert

You must have gotten yours just before I did. I did my A+ as 220-101/220-102 in Feb 1999, basically on a dare. Took them both on the same day. Maybe they upleveled the revisions from when you took it, eh? I remember at that time, I was slogging my way through the MCSE under NT4.

Stands to reason that 220-001 would be the first exam, with 002/003 being the two exams. However, I don't know for sure - just the reference from TestOut's site.

Click to expand...

I got mine in December 1997 and then starting studying and taking the 7 exams for MCSE NT4. A+ passed both on same day not really knowing what it was but techs doing cabling at new campus I had started at were talking about it and studying and from conversations figured I knew it. MCSE NT4 was different. Some of 7 tests I did one time, several 2 times and first I did (fundamentals) 3 times, as I had to learn to think MS as only way and I knew lots of varieties of networking, hands-on.

jasoneckert said:

That was the name of the hardware exam (service technician), not the OS exams
Of course, there was nothing wrong with just writing that exam if you just serviced hardware at the time.

Click to expand...

By December 1997 it required two exams to pass to get A+. I earned mine in December 1997. Took both exams blind not knowing what to expect. Prior only had CDP and CCP (both later merged a CCP) certifications

@Marc Child

Gregory Childers said:

View attachment 2184

Click to expand...

Can you site the source of your image? Genuine question as I'd like to do further research on how this could relate as a Cybersecurity topic.

Without full transparency, we'll never know what has been accessed and/or exposed.

My concern is that the world's richest man, who has quite a few substantial government contracts, has access to so much data in so many different federal departments. Snowden had extremely limited access comparatively speaking, and had no conflict of interest anywhere remotely similar.

Edward Coristine, a 19 year old DOGE team member w/ access to data from Treasury and other agencies, had a years-long association with Telegram and Discord channels connected to cybercrime. Wired found one of his websites sold an AI bot for Discord servers targeting the Russian market.

The world's richest man who donated $290 million to elect the president gets access to DoE, OPM, the Treasury, and DHS, etc. while having billions in contracts with the federal government? The optics on this are horrible.

For CertMaster Labs I suggest opening another one of the labs and in the Help tab on the right side of the screen selecting 'Open a Case'. From there you can open a case with support and ask them to reset that lab environment. In the past they typically got that done within 24 hours.

I have to say, this is a very dangerous political football question for the CIN board - which can easily spiral out of control, based on various ideologies.

That being said, I'm going to attempt a neutral approach. I'm going to say that with Government agencies, which are filled with unelected people that work at the behest of the Executive branch, collect and use PII regularly, one might infer that anyone with access to use PII would represent a risk of disclosure of that PII. At some point, that PII is going to be seen by someone else.

Now, the DOGE is a de-facto government agency now and while not a cabinet-level entity, was commissioned by the executive branch, although there are a number of legal initiatives in play to decide what its scope is. Elon Musk has been designated as Special Government Employee and leads this agency. It remains to be seen if his involvement in X, SpaceX, and Tesla present a legal conflict of interest, but this would hardly be the first alleged conflict of interest situation with a government employee or elected official. One might infer that and as such, might present the view of being able to compromise PII, or do all kinds of horrific things. The one thing about the DOGE situation is that it's incredibly visible and high profile, which is not sitting well, with government bureaucrats that may be under the DOGE's microscope.

But the point I make is that although Musk may or may not have access to American PII, there are tons of bureaucrats as well as contractors that do. Remember Ed Snowden? He had a lot of access to things, information about Americans that wasn't supposed to be collected - and we know how that panned out. Remember folks like Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames who were FBI and CIA, passing secrets to the Russians? Yes, all of this is criminal activity, but the risk is always there. We can bring up security clearances, compartmentalization, and sanctions for disclosure - but the risk is always there.

So as we all sit back and wait to see what the courts and Congress has to say about Mr. Musk and the DOGE, let's remember that there will always be a risk - not just because someone like Musk is there, but because all that data is still visible to someone, regardless of the outcome of what a court has to say.

/r

Tess Sluijter said:

Testing centers, you'll probably know, are individual enterprises. They are not owned or run by PearsonVue, each testing center is its own entity.

Testing centers might not offer any availability because they are simply closed for a few hours/days/weeks. They might not have the required staff to proctor the tests. For example: the school I teach at is a PV testing center, but they only have a proctor for something like three days a week.

Click to expand...

Thanks for replying. I ended up reaching out to our business manager. It was indeed an issue. Not sure if it was CompTIA's issue or PearsonVue's issue. Testing Center wasn't even listed as a choice. So you couldn't even get to the point where you pick a testing center. The only choice was OnVue or private code. It seems to be all fixed now.

Good afternoon Eddie,

I applied for the position you listed above. I look forward to speaking with you more.

Thank you!
Justin

Thank you, Stephen!

Hi Eddie,

I am currently preparing for the CompTIA Security+ certification and have extensive experience in cybersecurity and IT system administration. While this will be my first CompTIA certification, I have been actively teaching cybersecurity as an instructor and creating educational content through my YouTube channel, Tun’Sec. Additionally, I have several years of experience as a Security Analyst and Information Security System Administrator, working with SIEM solutions, vulnerability detection, incident response, and compliance. I am passionate about guiding learners in their IT and cybersecurity journeys.

Looking forward to your thoughts!

Stephen Schneiter said:

Join the CompTIA Instructor Network as we welcome Gareth Marchant who will lead our SecurityX CAS-005 TTT series. The series will consist of five sessions covering the SecurityX exam domains. Gareth will teach the key cybersecurity concepts covered on the exam as well as hands-on activities with key technology tools used by cybersecurity professionals.

We will also discuss instructional strategy for presenting the concepts to students and best practices for implementing a SecurityX course.
CompTIA SecurityX is an expert-level cybersecurity certification for security architects and senior security engineers charged with leading and improving an enterprise’s cybersecurity readiness. Skills that will be covered include:

• Security Architecture
• Security Operations
• Governance, Risk, and Compliance
• Security Engineering and Cryptography

What: CIN TTT Series SecurityX CAS-005 5 sessions
When: Feb 18, 2025, 4:00 - 6:00 PM Central Daylight Time, Tuesday and Thursday
Who: Gareth Marchant
Where: ON24

REGISTER HERE

View attachment 2180View attachment 2181

Click to expand...

Stephen Schneiter said:

Join the CompTIA Instructor Network as we welcome Gareth Marchant who will lead our SecurityX CAS-005 TTT series. The series will consist of five sessions covering the SecurityX exam domains. Gareth will teach the key cybersecurity concepts covered on the exam as well as hands-on activities with key technology tools used by cybersecurity professionals.

We will also discuss instructional strategy for presenting the concepts to students and best practices for implementing a SecurityX course.
CompTIA SecurityX is an expert-level cybersecurity certification for security architects and senior security engineers charged with leading and improving an enterprise’s cybersecurity readiness. Skills that will be covered include:

• Security Architecture
• Security Operations
• Governance, Risk, and Compliance
• Security Engineering and Cryptography

What: CIN TTT Series SecurityX CAS-005 5 sessions
When: Feb 18, 2025, 4:00 - 6:00 PM Central Daylight Time, Tuesday and Thursday
Who: Gareth Marchant
Where: ON24

REGISTER HERE

View attachment 2180View attachment 2181

Click to expand...

Perfect ! Thank you

I have not yet received mine either.

Wonderfully waiting for it.

In May 2024, CompTIA announced a roadmap of AI offerings. AI Essentials was released in the CompTIA store last week.


I have no idea what the timeline is for the remainder of the releases.

It's great CompTIA is expanding into AI security, given how AI is being integrated into cybersecurity... We see attackers using AI to automate phishing attacks, for example last year, a finance employee was fooled into wiring millions of dollars after receiving a fake video call that looked and sounded exactly like their CEO.... This is too concerning, hopefully SecAI+ covers defending against these kinds of threats.