About This Book

Each topical Exam Cram chapter follows a regular structure, along with graphical clues about important or useful information. Here's the structure of a typical chapter:

• Opening hotlists Each chapter begins with a list of the terms, tools, and techniques you must learn and understand before you can be fully conversant with that chapter's subject matter. We follow the hotlists with one or two introductory paragraphs to set the stage for the rest of the chapter.

• Topical coverage After the opening hotlists, each chapter covers a series of at least four topics related to the chapter's subject title. Throughout this section, we highlight topics or concepts likely to appear on a test using a special Exam Alert layout, like this:

  

  This is what an Exam Alert looks like. Normally, an Exam Alert stresses concepts, terms, software, or activities that are likely to relate to one or more certification test questions. For that reason, any information found offset in an Exam Alert format is worthy of unusual attentiveness on your part.

  
  

  Pay close attention to material flagged as an Exam Alert; although all the information in this book pertains to what you need to know to pass the exam, we flag certain items that are really important. You'll find what appears in the meat of each chapter to be worth knowing, too, when preparing for the test.

  Because this book's material is very condensed, we recommend that you use this book along with other resources to achieve the maximum benefit.

• Practice questions Although we talk about test questions and topics throughout each chapter, this section presents a series of mock test questions and explanations of both correct and incorrect answers. We also try to point out especially tricky questions by using a special icon, like this:

  Ordinarily, this icon flags the presence of a particularly devious inquiry, if not an outright trick question. Trick questions are calculated to be answered incorrectly if not read more than onceand carefully at that. Although they are not ubiquitous, such questions make occasional appearances on CompTIA exams. That is why we say exam questions are as much about reading comprehension as they are about knowing your material inside-out and backwards .

• Details and resources Every chapter ends with a section titled "Need to Know More?" that provides direct pointers to security resources that offer more details on the chapter's subject. If you find a resource you like in this collection, use it, but don't feel compelled to use all the resources. On the other hand, we recommend only those resources we ourselves use regularly, so none of our recommendations will waste your time or money.

The bulk of the book follows this chapter structure slavishly, but there are a few other elements we'd like to point out. Chapters 12 and 14 each contain an entire sample test that provides a good review of the material presented throughout the book to ensure you're ready for the exam. Chapters 13 and 15 contain the corresponding answer keys to the sample test chapters that precede them. Additionally, you'll find appendixes at the back of the book that include the following information:

• A list of study, practice test, and other resources relevant to the Security+ exam (Appendix A)

• A list of security-related products, vendors , and technologies mentioned throughout the book (Appendix B)

• A glossary that explains terms

• An index you can use to track down terms as they appear in the text

Finally, the tear-out Cram Sheet attached next to the inside front cover of this Exam Cram 2 book represents a condensed and compiled collection of facts, tricks, and tips we think you should memorize before taking the test. Because you can dump this information out of your head onto a piece of paper before answering any exam questions, you can master this information by brute forceyou need to remember it only long enough to write it down when you walk into the test room. You might even want to look at it in the car or in the lobby of the testing center just before you walk in to take the test.

Typographic Conventions

In this book, configuration settings and script fragments are typeset in a monospaced font, as in the following example:

 deny all allow port 25 80 445 allow domain microsoft.com allow protocols HTTP, SMTP, LDAP 

This notation means that all access is denied , by default, and that only ports 25, 80, and 445 are allowed, as are the associated protocols SMTP (email), HTTP (Web), and LDAP (directory services). Likewise, only the domain microsoft.com is accessible under these filter definitions, which are abstract and do not correspond to exact syntax and structure for real-world routers or firewalls like those from Cisco, CheckPoint, Microsoft, or other vendors.