Initial thought was that CCNA Cyber Ops would be spared from the certpocalypse. But, it seems that big changes to this certification have been merely delayed.
Cisco will retire the two CCNA Cyber Ops exams on May 28, 2020. They have also changed the name of the cert to Cisco Certified CyberOps Associate. There will be overlap between the old and new exams, especially when it comes to foundational topics. There is however a significant change.
Cisco will consolidate the two exams — SECFND and SECOPS — into one exam, 200-201 CBROPS. It will be available May 29, 2020. Cisco is streamlining the process in order to make it more relevant to the security landscape of the next decade. These changes will help you prepare for and pass Cisco Certified CyberOps certification.
What is Cisco Certified CyberOps Associate certification?
This certification, according to Cisco is the first step towards a career as a cybersecurity professional or in cybersecurity operations. It provides the knowledge and skills that professionals need to succeed within the complex cybersecurity field.
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The 200-201 exam covers the following domains.
Security concepts
Security monitoring
Analysis based on host
Network intrusion analysis
Security policies and procedures
The 200-201 CBROPS exam covers foundational skills in cybersecurity. You will need to be able to comprehend topics at a conceptual level. This includes encryption, PKI infrastructure and firewalls as well as specific technologies like SIEM, TCP and Wireshark.
This certification is approved by the DoD 85701.01M for the CSSP analyst, CCSP incident responder categories. It is ideal for IT professionals who work or want work in the government sector.
Do you have a current Cyber Ops Cert?
You will automatically be awarded the CyberOps Associate certificate if you have an active CCNA Cyber Ops certificate. You have until May 28th to take the SECOPS and SECFND exams if you are currently studying for your current certification or have already passed them.
What you need to know: 200-201 CBROPS
The new Cyber Ops exam 200-201 CBROPS has a 120-minute limit and contains between 95 to 105 questions. Although it is an associate-level exam, there is no prerequisite. However, we recommend that you have at least 12 months of cybersecurity experience. Although Cisco has not yet provided an official exam price, we anticipate it to be $300, which is the same price as most associate-level exams.
Before you sit for the 200-201 CBROPS exam, you might want to earn the entry-level Cisco Certified Technicians and Cisco Certified Entry Networking Technicians certifications (CCT).
What’s Changing?
Although we don’t have much information about the content changes that will be made for the new certifications, we do know that they are part of a larger effort by Cisco to ensure the relevance and applicability of their exams. The main takeaway from this exam is that it is a condensed version two separate exams, SECOPS and SECFND. The new exam covers the same material as the two previous exams at a high level — from incident handling to endpoint threat analysis to security monitoring.
It appears to be less detailed. For example, the SECFND’s cryptography domain required knowledge about hash algorithms (SHA-1, MD5, etc.). and encryption algorithms (DES or AES, for example). ), while the new exam asks for us to describe encryption’s effect on data visibility.
It’s important to be familiar with different types of encryption, especially for your job. However, the CBROPS test requires you to have a deeper understanding of the issue. This is both good and bad news.