r/WGUCyberSecurity

So I’m about to start studying for the trifecta and I am not wanting to purchase any material except maybe Dion’s practice tests. I am wanting to use Gemini pro (I have a free subscription for a year) and professor messer. I was wondering if you guys think it would be a good idea to start with the exam objectives and plug them into AI and ask questions about anything and everything I don’t understand about an objective until I feel like I’m getting it. Then I would go and watch through professor messers videos and if there’s anything else on there that I’m not understanding I’ll study it more then take the practice exams. I don’t know if that’s a good idea? To use ai as my main learning and messer as my double check if I’m getting it? What are your guys thoughts?

This maybe a dumb question cause obviously the answer is just persevere and keep going.

But how many classes do you aim to get done in a timespan and how do you keep ur motivation and avoiding burnout

im trying to just get a gauge at how others are doing in getting classes done.

I really dont want to do a second term but it seems unavoidable if i want to be healthy about my job and social life, however I dont want that to be my excuse to reach a goal so im reaching out so i can get that reference to other peoples work load.

Hey there. Really considering a career change. I have a BA already (in nothing related to IT) and was wondering if it’s possible to jump into the MS program OR should I get a BS in cyber then do the masters. I could also do some of the “self taught” courses like hack the box and other things to get my feet under me before doing the MS. Thanks for your input!

https://preview.redd.it/7wqunknjg52h1.png?width=1304&format=png&auto=webp&s=480689aad5c24c1186415e8854ef821bca428582

I dont know where to look. I have gotten the infamous "we have decided to move forward and you were not selected" emails than I can count right now. I have been trying DICE site but a lot of Indian recruiters call me over and over for 2 jobs i was denied lol. Zip recruiter is old posts and monster seems the same. Im literally going to craiglist.

689/900

Cannot stress the importance of code review, easily half of my questions were code review of “what would help the attacker improve there attack” or “what should be replaced in this script to preform as expected/fix the script” not sure if I just got a code heavy test but I only got maybe 10-15% of questions on tool/tool use. PBQ’s only got 5 but very non standard for what I’ve seen from Comptia essentially just multi part multiple choice no drag and drop just what’s being attacked/what’s the remediation recommended.

But as I started this off with CODE REVIEW!!

I look online and all I see is horror stories, which I know can’t be true. For those who have gotten your cert. how deep do you really need to go into this stuff just to pass the exam??
Background: did a CyberSec Bootcamp 3 years ago, level 3 tech @ an MSP, past Security Engineer, so I got a bit of experience.
I just don’t want to waste my time in going deeper than I have to since i’m trying to pass this thing in a max of 3 weeks.

Hello all,

I passed the Pentest on Friday with a 759. I want to tell you that the exam is not easy. But in no way is it as hard as all the posts that you’ve seen on Reddit. I was extremely worried starting this course because of all the fails and how many times people have taken it, yada yada. It is just like any other Comptia Exam but yes it’s hard.. it’s supposed to be. I studied for about 60 days but that’s because I had little to no experience scripting.

Here are the resources I used;

1. Certmaster perform labs - they were required

2. Gemini Pro - got the free one month

3. Pocket prep - bought the month, used it MAYBE 2-3 times for an hour each

4. Hank Hackerson - this helped me start my journey but I watched it while working out mostly

5. Quizlet - I got a pdf from one of the instructors and used AI to turn it into flashcards

I will tell you that Gemini was my absolute best study practice and it wasn’t even close. I used a master prompt for teaching a student to pass the exam (gave the version obviously) and wanted to focus on learning scripts, learning each tool (from PDF) and just focusing on the objectives.

I had Gemini run through the tools one by one, what it does, is it active or passive, when to use it, how to remediate it.

Every tool that used CLI, I went through it line by line and explain it to me. Even if I wasn’t understanding it I made it dumb it down even more. Trust me it helps, if you’re not understanding something tell it to try a different approach to teaching you.

For this exam, learn the tools, you can mostly get by just knowing what they are. Obviously look at the more obvious ones with more depth (nmap, metasploit, nslookup/dig, theharvester, etc.) you DO NOT need to kill one specific tool. Nmap and metasploit you should probably be familiar with but you don’t need to go crazy, they don’t expect you to know every little thing.

I would list everything to go over but there’s many posts on here about what resources people used and what to study. If this helps great and good luck on your exam/journey! You’ll do amazing. Just stop stressing and just study. You’ll pass it!

D320 was honestly a bit harder for me. I ended up taking it twice before passing (this class was accelerated for me, so some things were new to me).

For me, the OA felt VERY different from the PA and much more scenario/wording-based (I think that just varies from person to person, though.) A lot of answers looked correct, so actually understanding the concepts mattered more than memorizing definitions.

The biggest things that helped me were:

• WannaBeA CCSP videos from the course material
• practice questions that explained WHY answers were right/wrong
• studying like I was preparing for the CCSP instead of just memorizing for the OA

Personally, I don’t think Dan’s guide by itself would’ve been enough for me because there were still topics I wasn’t fully confident in. I’d still skim through it though, then use videos/practice questions to reinforce the concepts better. That's just my opinion.

This Reddit post/practice questions helped me a LOT and felt very similar to the wording/style I saw on the OA:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WGU/comments/1eeej5l/guide_to_passing_d320_managing_cloud_security/

The areas I personally saw a lot of were:

• risk management
• governance/legal/compliance
• incident response
• multitenancy
• MFA
• encryption
• disaster recovery terms
• vendor lock-in
• SOC vs SIEM
• STRIDE/PASTA/DREAD

I finally passed last night after stressing. I hope this helps someone.

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Hey there, was gonna sign up an do the bachelors and some other cyber security course outside of WGA. I was in the market for a family laptop and was also gonna use it for the cyber security classes/labs. I was looking at MacBooks but want to make sure I’ll be able to do the labs etc on them. Thanks!

Anyone have any study guides or study material for the OA? I asked my professor if there was any helpful resources and he said read the book and that was it. Just looking for extra help to pass the OA fast! Thanks!

I really don’t have much to contribute than whine about how nothing I used prepared me for the PBQs. Much of what we all know is great for the multiple choice (55 questions), such as Sybex, Cybervista, CertMaster, etc.

However, absolutely none of the videos suggested or practice questions in the CertMaster were anything similar to 4/7 PBQs. One alone had hundreds of lines of log, and others had a really weird navigation to different PCs, etc. While a lot of the general material was familiar, absolutely nothing was prepared similarly. The PA is laughably easier than some of the PBQs. As someone who is testing anxious, I took in every last minute allotted to stare at the screen like a deer in the headlights.

I didn’t do pocket prep or tryhackme, so maybe I just shot myself in the foot on preparations. I passed, but I absolutely believe the 1-2 gimme PBQs in addition to the multiple choice was the only reason why, not a subject mastery or general familiarity as these prep materials seem to aim you towards.

TL;DR maybe listen to pocket prep and tryhackme suggestions and throw Dion and Chapple in your background noise instead.

How reliable is pocket prep for gaguing how ready i am for the Pentest cert? Obviously, as far as i can tell, it's probably not as difficult as a lot of the stuff I see on the test. I took one of their 90 question practice tests last night and got an 83, it could have been higher but there was one section that i got like 60% on and it weighed everything down.

I'm also doing the Certmaster material since they require it now (It's actually crazy how useless the labs have been for them to be required, but that's for another post), i'm on section 7 right now. I'm watching the Jason Deion videos, and once i work through Certmaster i'm going to start back on TryHackMe.

I feel at least fairly confident with the tools, I do need more work but I don't feel lost anymore. I'm not so worried about the command structure.

I just want to see if maybe I need to pick up the pace at all or does 3-4 weeks sound like enough time?

Got a 726/750. Every other cert I've passed in one attempt. Weirdly it felt like a lot of the questions did not align with the course material.

Wish this class wasn't in the degree, but it is what it is. Regrouping and trying again in a few weeks.

Passed this exam on the 8th. I got a 768, and only had 4 PBQs, with 70 total questions.

Reddit really does make you scared for no reason. This is just another CompTIA exam. Don't let the horror stories get to you and just study adequately.

Resources I used:
The entire Jason Dion video course
ALL of Certmaster. Reading, activities, labs, tests, quizzes
All 6 of Jason Dion Practice Exams (averaged an 80)
Flashcards

I studied for about ~5 weeks and work full-time.
I did not do TryHackMe, or any additional coding practice. I felt that the previous WGU courses and the Dion exams prepared me well enough.

You NEED to know the tools. You do NOT need to know every single nmap flag in-depth. Just be able to identify stealth scans, etc.

My final review was just going through the exam objectives and ensuring I could at least give a definition / short blurb for each bullet point.

Don't let the Reddit fearmongering get to you, study well, and take the test.
Onto the capstone!