Certified: The CompTIA Security+ V8 / SY0-801 Audio Course
by Jason Edwards
Certified: The CompTIA Security+ V8 / SY0-801 Audio Course is built for learners who want a clear, practical path into modern cybersecurity fundamentals without being tied to a desk. It is designed for entry-level security professionals, IT support staff, help desk technicians, junior system administrators, career changers, and anyone preparing for the Security+ exam. The course assumes you may already understand basic networking and computer systems, but it does not assume deep security experience. Each lesson explains the ideas behind the exam objectives in plain language, then connects them to the kinds of decisions security teams make every day.You will learn the core areas expected of a Security+ candidate, including threats, vulnerabilities, secure architecture, identity and access management, cryptography, risk, governance, incident response, cloud security, endpoint protection, and operational security practices. The course is taught as an audio-first learning experience, whi
Episodes
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Welcome to the CompTIA Security+ Audio Course!
Certified: The CompTIA Security+ V8 / SY0-801 Audio Course is built for learners who want a clear, practical path into modern cybersecurity fundamentals without being tied to a desk. It is designed for entry-level security professionals, IT support staff, help desk technicians, junior system...
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Episode 118 — Final Objectives Update: What Changed When CompTIA Finalized SY0-801 (Update)
This episode is reserved for final updates after CompTIA finalizes the SY0-801 exam objectives. Its purpose is to identify what changed from the draft objectives, including added topics, removed topics, renamed terms, reorganized objectives, weight changes, or clarified wording that affects study...
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Episode 117 — Full-Course Review: The SY0-801 Memory Map (Review)
This episode provides a guided review of the major relationships students should remember across the SY0-801 course. The five-domain structure can be understood as a connected security model: threats and vulnerabilities create risk, risk drives control selection, controls support secure...
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Episode 116 — PBQ Strategy: Turning Objectives into Scenario Decisions (Review)
This episode teaches students how to approach performance-based questions by turning exam objectives into practical scenario decisions. A strong PBQ approach starts by identifying the task, the environment, the security goal, and the evidence provided. Students should look for clues such as…
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Episode 115 — Awareness Delivery and Effectiveness: LMS, Self-Service, Metrics, Behavior Risk Scoring, BEC, BYOD, and Remote Work (5.6)
This episode covers how security awareness is delivered, measured, and improved over time. Students should understand learning management systems, self-service training, one-to-one instruction, and one-to-many instruction as different ways to reach users based on scale, role, and need....
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Episode 114 — Security Awareness Training: Onboarding, Ongoing, Targeted, and Corrective Training (5.6)
This episode explains security awareness as an ongoing program rather than a one-time compliance activity. Students should understand onboarding training as the first introduction to organizational expectations, acceptable use, data handling, reporting procedures, and common threats. Ongoing...
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Episode 113 — Penetration Testing, Reconnaissance, Frameworks, Functional Testing, and Behavioral Testing (5.5)
This episode explains penetration testing and related assessment methods at a Security+ level. Students should understand the difference between known, unknown, and partially known environments, where testers may have full information, no internal knowledge, or limited details before testing...
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Episode 112 — Audit Scope and Engagements: Charters, Gap Analysis, Internal Reviews, External Reviews, and Benchmarking (5.5)
This episode covers audit scope and engagement planning, including charters, frequency, boundaries, gap analysis, internal reviews, external reviews, regulatory assessments, and benchmarking. Students should understand that an audit charter defines authority, purpose, responsibilities, and scope…
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Episode 111 — Audit Data Gathering: Sampling, Questionnaires, Interviews, Assertions, and Reference Sources (5.5)
This episode explains how audits and assessments gather evidence to determine whether controls, processes, and security requirements are working as expected. Students should understand sampling as reviewing a representative portion of records or systems rather than every item, while…
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Episode 110 — Non-Compliance, Privacy Rights, Legal Holds, Legal Orders, and Retention (5.4)
This episode covers the consequences of non-compliance and the legal and privacy concepts that shape data handling decisions. Students should understand that non-compliance can lead to reputational damage, financial penalties, legal action, contract violations, license loss, operational…
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Episode 109 — Compliance Training and Monitoring: Data Handling, AML/CTF, Anti-Bribery, and Attestations (5.4)
This episode explains compliance as the need to meet laws, regulations, contracts, internal policies, and industry standards. Students should understand that compliance training helps employees know what is required for data handling, privacy, reporting, acceptable behavior, and regulated…
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Episode 108 — Vendor Constraints and Rules of Engagement: Jurisdiction, ROI, Lock-In, and Assurance Mechanisms (5.3)
This episode explains vendor constraints and assurance mechanisms that affect third-party risk decisions. Students should understand that staffing, resources, geography, jurisdiction, return on investment, and vendor lock-in can influence whether a third-party relationship is practical, secure…
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Episode 107 — Agreements and Monitoring: SLA, SLO, MOU, MOA, NDA, MSA, SOW, and Right to Audit (5.3)
This episode covers common third-party agreements and monitoring terms that define expectations between organizations. Service-level agreements establish required service commitments, while service-level objectives define measurable targets that support those commitments. Memorandums of...
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Episode 106 — Third-Party Risk: Vendor Selection, RFP, RFI, RFQ, EOI, Due Diligence, and Conflicts (5.3)
This episode explains third-party risk and why vendors, partners, suppliers, service providers, and contractors can extend an organization’s attack surface and compliance obligations. Students should understand vendor selection as a security-relevant process that evaluates capability…
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Episode 105 — Risk Treatment and Business Impact: Transfer, Accept, Avoid, Mitigate, BIA, Appetite, Residual Risk, SLE, ALE, and ARO (5.2)
This episode covers risk treatment and business impact concepts that help organizations decide what to do after a risk is assessed. Students should understand that risk can be transferred through insurance or contracts, accepted when leadership chooses to live with it, avoided by stopping the…
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Episode 104 — Risk Analysis and Registers: Impact, Likelihood, Owners, Current Mitigations, and Qualitative vs. Quantitative Risk (5.2)
This episode explains risk analysis and the role of the risk register in tracking organizational risk. Students should understand impact as the amount of harm a risk could cause and likelihood as the chance that the risk may occur. Risk owners are responsible for tracking, reporting, and…
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Episode 103 — Risk Identification and Assessment: Assets, Stakeholders, Scoring, and Categorization (5.2)
This episode introduces risk identification and assessment as the process of finding what could go wrong, what assets could be affected, and who needs to be involved in the decision. Students should understand that assets may include systems, data, facilities, services, people, vendors,...
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Episode 102 — Plans and Policies: BCP, DRP, BYOD, AUP, Clean Desk, Incident Response, Data Retention, Access Control, and Privacy (5.1)
This episode covers major security plans and policies students are expected to recognize for the Security+ exam. Business continuity plans focus on keeping essential functions operating, while disaster recovery plans focus on restoring systems and data after disruption. BYOD policies define rules...
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Episode 101 — Standards and Procedures: Baselines, Passwords, Physical Security, RFCs, Encryption, SOPs, and Runbooks (5.1)
This episode explains how standards and procedures turn broad security policy into repeatable action. Students should understand that baselines define approved configuration settings, password standards establish expectations for authentication strength, physical security standards guide facility...
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Episode 100 — GRC Artifacts: Guidelines, Benchmarks, Advisories, Implementation Guides, and Reference Architectures (5.1)
This episode introduces governance, risk, and compliance artifacts that help organizations build consistent security programs. Guidelines provide recommended practices, benchmarks define measurable configuration expectations, advisories warn about risks or required action, implementation guides...
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Episode 99 — Evidence and Stakeholders: File Integrity, Memory Dumps, Bit Copies, Snapshots, HR, Legal, and Log Parsing (4.8)
This episode explains evidence handling and stakeholder involvement during security investigations. File integrity checks help confirm whether files were changed, while log integrity helps determine whether records can be trusted. Memory dumps may capture volatile evidence such as running...
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Episode 98 — Investigation Sources: Vulnerability Scans, Automated Reports, NetFlow/IPFIX, Surveillance, and Packet Captures (4.8)
This episode covers investigation sources beyond standard logs, including vulnerability scans, automated reports, NetFlow, IPFIX, surveillance footage, dashboards, and packet captures. Vulnerability scans can show known weaknesses that may explain an entry point, while automated reports can...
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Episode 97 — Investigation Data Types: Access, Device, Server, Application, Authentication, Communication, and Audit Logs (4.8)
This episode explains the major log categories used during security investigations and how each source contributes part of the incident story. Access logs show who reached a resource and when, device logs reveal endpoint or network device activity, server logs show operating system or service...
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Episode 96 — Containment Through Post-Incident: Isolation, Negotiation, Recovery, Reporting, Lessons Learned, and RCA (4.7)
This episode covers the incident response path from containment through post-incident activity. Containment limits damage by isolating systems, disabling accounts, blocking traffic, or separating affected environments. Eradication removes the cause of compromise, and recovery restores systems,...
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Episode 95 — Identification and Investigation: Detection, Advisories, Threat Hunting, Forensics, and Chain of Custody (4.7)
This episode explains how teams identify and investigate potential security incidents using alerts, advisories, threat hunting, forensics, and evidence handling. Detection may begin with monitoring tools, user reports, endpoint alerts, network anomalies, or external notifications. Advisories can...
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Episode 94 — Incident Response Preparation: Training, Tabletop Exercises, Playbooks, Simulations, and Roles (4.7)
This episode covers the preparation phase of incident response, where organizations define how they will act before an actual security incident occurs. Students should understand training, tabletop exercises, playbooks, simulations, communication plans, escalation paths, and role assignments as...
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Episode 93 — AI in SecOps: Agentic AI, Chatbots, Predictive Analysis, AI-Augmented Baselines, and CI/CD (4.6)
This episode explains how AI can support security operations through assistant-style tools, agentic workflows, predictive analysis, AI-augmented baselines, and integration with continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines. Students should understand that chatbots may help summarize...
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Episode 92 — Automation Risks and Guardrails: Logic, Complexity, Financial Risk, and Process Risk (4.6)
This episode covers the risks that appear when automation executes bad logic quickly, repeatedly, or at scale. Students should understand that automation can amplify mistakes, such as provisioning excessive permissions, deleting resources, misrouting alerts, triggering expensive cloud actions, or...
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Episode 91 — Automation Use Cases: Provisioning, Desired State, Anomaly Detection, and Ticketing (4.6)
This episode explains how automation supports security operations by making common workflows faster, more consistent, and easier to repeat. Students should understand provisioning as the automated creation of users, systems, permissions, or resources based on approved rules. Desired state...
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Episode 90 — Access Models and Modern Authentication: JIT Access, Passkeys, Passwordless, and Credential Monitoring (4.5)
This episode covers access control models and modern authentication methods that reduce reliance on standing privileges and reusable passwords. Students should understand rule-based, role-based, time-based, mandatory, discretionary, and just-in-time access models, along with how each controls...
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Episode 89 — MFA: Tokens, Biometrics, OTPs, Backup Codes, and Bypass Risks (4.5)
This episode explains multifactor authentication and the common methods used to strengthen login security. Students should understand hard tokens, soft tokens, biometrics, one-time passwords, push prompts, and backup codes as different ways to add proof beyond a password. MFA reduces credential...
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Episode 88 — Account Types and Privilege Models: User, Privileged, Service, Third-Party, and Emergency Access (4.5)
This episode covers common account types and explains why each requires different controls, monitoring, and review. Standard user accounts support daily work and should have only the permissions needed for assigned duties. Privileged accounts can change systems, access sensitive data, or…
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Episode 87 — Federation and SSO: SAML, LDAP, and OAuth (4.5)
This episode explains federation and single sign-on at a Security+ level by focusing on what these technologies help accomplish. Federation allows identity information and trust to be shared between systems or organizations, while single sign-on lets users authenticate once and access multiple...
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Episode 86 — IAM Lifecycle: Provisioning, Deprovisioning, Permissions, and Identity Proofing (4.5)
This episode introduces identity and access management lifecycle activities from initial account creation through role changes and account removal. Provisioning creates access based on verified need, identity proofing helps confirm that a person is who they claim to be, permissions define what…
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Episode 85 — Monitoring Protocols and Data Flow: NetFlow, SNMP, Syslog, SCAP, Port Mirroring, and Dashboards (4.4)
This episode explains common monitoring protocols and data sources used to understand system and network activity. NetFlow summarizes traffic patterns between systems, SNMP supports network device monitoring and status collection, syslog forwards event messages, SCAP supports standardized...
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Episode 84 — Monitoring Tools: SIEM, DLP, Vulnerability Scanners, Orchestration, and Packet Analyzers (4.4)
This episode covers major monitoring tools and the role each plays in visibility, detection, and response. A security information and event management platform collects and correlates logs from many sources, while data loss prevention tools help identify or block sensitive data leaving approved...
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Episode 83 — Alerting Operations: Scanning, Archiving, Reporting, and Alert Tuning (4.4)
This episode explains alerting operations and why effective monitoring requires more than simply turning on every possible alert. Students should understand how scanning, archiving, reporting, baselines, thresholds, escalation paths, and alert tuning help teams identify meaningful events without...
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Episode 82 — Monitoring Resources: Systems, Applications, Infrastructure, and Log Aggregation (4.4)
This episode introduces the resources security teams monitor to detect threats, investigate activity, and support reporting. Students should recognize that useful monitoring may include systems, applications, infrastructure, cloud services, endpoints, identity platforms, databases, network…
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Episode 81 — External Reporting: Bug Bounties and Responsible Disclosure (4.3)
This episode explains external vulnerability reporting through bug bounty programs and responsible disclosure. Students should understand that bug bounties create a structured way for outside researchers to report security weaknesses within an approved scope, while responsible disclosure focuses…
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Episode 80 — Remediation, Verification, and Internal Reporting (4.3)
This episode explains what happens after a vulnerability or weakness has been identified and prioritized. Remediation may involve patching, configuration changes, disabling exposed services, rotating credentials, improving access control, deploying compensating controls, or accepting risk through...
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Episode 79 — Prioritization: Severity, Business Impact, and Pen Test Report Review (4.3)
This episode teaches students how to prioritize vulnerabilities and penetration test findings using more than severity alone. Severity helps describe technical risk, but remediation priority also depends on exploitability, exposure, asset criticality, business impact, compensating controls, data...
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Episode 78 — Vulnerability Management Overview: Scanning, IPAM, CSPM, and Source Code Review (4.3)
This episode explains vulnerability management as a recurring operational process rather than a one-time scan. Vulnerability scanning identifies known weaknesses in systems, applications, configurations, and network exposure, but findings must be validated, prioritized, remediated, and verified.…
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Episode 77 — Planning, Procurement, Assignment, Tracking, Disposal, and Decommissioning (4.2)
This episode covers the asset lifecycle from planning and procurement through assignment, accounting, tracking, disposal, and decommissioning. Planning defines what the organization needs and what security requirements must be built in before purchase. Procurement should consider approved…
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Episode 76 — Asset Management: Hardware, Software, and Data Life Cycle (4.2)
This episode introduces asset management as a security foundation for hardware, software, and data throughout their life cycles. Students should understand that organizations cannot reliably patch, monitor, classify, protect, or retire assets they do not know exist. Hardware inventories identify...
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Episode 75 — Email and OS Security: DMARC, SPF, DKIM, BIMI, Group Policy, and SELinux (4.1)
This episode explains email authentication and operating system security controls that help enforce trust and configuration standards. Sender Policy Framework helps identify which mail servers are authorized to send mail for a domain, DomainKeys Identified Mail uses cryptographic signatures to...
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Episode 74 — Repository, Application, and Code Security: Secrets Scanning, Input Validation, Secure Cookies, Static Analysis, and Code Signing (4.1)
This episode covers security controls that protect code, applications, and software repositories from preventable weaknesses. Secrets scanning detects exposed API keys, passwords, tokens, certificates, or credentials before they are misused. Input validation checks that submitted data follows...
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Episode 73 — Endpoint and Network Access Control: EDR, XDR, Antivirus, Captive Portals, 802.1X, and Posture (4.1)
This episode explains how endpoint protection and network access control help determine whether a device should be trusted, monitored, restricted, or blocked. Antivirus focuses on known malicious files and behavior, while endpoint detection and response provides deeper investigation, containment,...
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Episode 72 — Firewalls and Filtering: WAF, UTM, Layer 4/Layer 7, Rate Limiting, and DLP (4.1)
This episode compares firewall and filtering technologies by focusing on what each control is designed to inspect, block, or allow. Traditional firewalls often filter traffic by addresses, ports, and protocols, while Layer 4 controls focus on transport-level details and Layer 7 controls inspect...
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Episode 71 — Monitoring, MDM, Allow Lists, Block Lists, IDS, IPS, and WIPS (4.1)
This episode covers monitoring and access control technologies that help organizations identify suspicious behavior and reduce exposure. Monitoring provides visibility into systems, users, devices, and network activity, while mobile device management helps enforce configuration, encryption,...
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Episode 70 — Deception and Disruption: Honeypots, Honeynets, Honeyfiles, Honeytokens, and Canary Accounts (4.1)
This episode explains deception technologies that help detect, study, or slow attackers by presenting attractive fake targets or monitored artifacts. A honeypot is a decoy system, while a honeynet is a collection of decoy systems designed to observe attacker behavior. Honeyfiles are fake files...
About this show
Certified: The CompTIA Security+ V8 / SY0-801 Audio Course is built for learners who want a clear, practical path into modern cybersecurity fundamentals without being tied to a desk. It is designed for entry-level security professionals, IT support staff, help desk technicians, junior system administrators, career changers, and anyone preparing for the Security+ exam. The course assumes you may already understand basic networking and computer systems, but it does not assume deep security experience. Each lesson explains the ideas behind the exam objectives in plain language, then connects them to the kinds of decisions security teams make every day.You will learn the core areas expected of a Security+ candidate, including threats, vulnerabilities, secure architecture, identity and access management, cryptography, risk, governance, incident response, cloud security, endpoint protection, and operational security practices. The course is taught as an audio-first learning experience, whi
Hosted by
Jason Edwards
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