Book Image

CompTIA Security+ Certification Guide

By : Ian Neil
Book Image

CompTIA Security+ Certification Guide

By: Ian Neil

Overview of this book

CompTIA Security+ is a worldwide certification that establishes the fundamental knowledge required to perform core security functions and pursue an IT security career. CompTIA Security+ Certification Guide is a best-in-class exam study guide that covers all of CompTIA Security+ 501 exam objectives. It is authored by Ian Neil, who is a world-class trainer of CompTIA Security+ 501. Packed with self-assessment scenarios and realistic exam questions, this guide will help you master the core concepts to succeed in the exam the first time you take it. Using relevant examples, you will learn all the important security fundamentals from Certificates and Encryption to Identity and Access Management concepts. You will then dive into the important domains of the exam; namely, threats, attacks and vulnerabilities, technologies and tools, architecture and design, risk management, and cryptography and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). This book comes with over 600 practice questions with detailed explanation that is at the exam level and also includes two mock exams to help you with your study plan. This guide will ensure that encryption and certificates are made easy for you.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
12
Mock Exam 1
13
Mock Exam 2
15
Acronyms

Hardware/Firmware Security

We need to protect our computer systems against someone stealing the data by stealing the device, re-installing the operating system, and stealing the data. We need to be able to secure the OSes and hardware by encrypting them using products such as Microsoft's Bitlocker. Let's look at some encryption methods:

  • Hardware root of trust: When we use certificates for FDE, they use a hardware root of trust that verifies that the keys match before the secure boot process takes place.
  • Full Disk Encryption (FDE): FDE uses X509 certificates to encrypt the full disk, but needs a TPM chip on the motherboard to store the keys. Sometimes, these can be referred to as self-encrypting devices. When you boot up from the computer, you are asked for a password to access the system.
  • Trusted Platform Module (TPM): The TPM chip is stored on the motherboard and is...