Cybersecurity 路 Free
CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Exam Prep
Prepare for CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 with Professor Messer's complete free video course: every exam objective across the five domains, with EDWartens notes, worked calculations, practice questions and an optional security project. Exam preparation only: the EDWartens certificate is not the CompTIA Security+ certification, which is earned only by passing CompTIA's exam.
Inside the course
From the lessons
How the Security+ exam works
Professor Messer
Change management and cryptography (1.3 to 1.4)
Professor Messer
Types of vulnerability (2.3)
Professor Messer
Mitigation and security architecture (2.5 to 3.2)
Professor Messer
Hardening, assets and vulnerability management (4.1 to 4.3)
Professor Messer
Identity, automation and incident response (4.6 to 4.9)
Professor Messer
Lesson frames belong to the creators named in the Credits below and are shown from YouTube.
What you will learn
Explain every SY0-701 objective in the exam's own vocabulary: security controls and concepts, cryptography and PKI, threat actors and social engineering, vulnerabilities and attacks, mitigations and secure architecture, data protection and resilience, hardening, vulnerability management, monitoring, identity and access, incident response, and governance, risk and compliance; calculate SLE and ALE; and apply the concepts in a small-office security assessment.
- Classify security controls and explain CIA, AAA and zero trust
- Explain PKI, encryption, hashing and digital signatures
- Recognise threat actors, vectors, social engineering and attacks
- Match vulnerabilities to their controls and read indicators of compromise
- Place firewalls, IPS, proxies and zones in a secure architecture
- Protect data in every state and plan RTO, RPO and backups
- Run vulnerability management, monitoring, IAM and incident response
- Calculate SLE and ALE and choose a risk strategy
For you
Taking CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Exam Prep from the United States
- Free in the United States, as everywhere, and self-paced: lessons, notes and the final assessment are open at any hour, so your time zone and shift pattern do not matter.
- The optional certificate for learners in the United States is a one-off US$23.99. What you get for it
- Plants across the Americas most often run Allen-Bradley, Siemens and Inductive Automation; each has its own free course to take next.
- See automation and engineering jobs in the United States, and what the industry looks like in Houston, Detroit and Chicago.
- EDWartens also has a regional site for the United States, for classroom training and local support: edwartens.com/us.
The course project 路 about 10 hours
A security assessment of a small accounting office, mapped to Security+ domains: asset list, risk register, incident procedure and report
Apply the Security+ domains to a real-sized problem: assess a 25-person accounting office's security, build its asset list and risk register with ALE figures, write its incident response procedure, and deliver a prioritised report mapped to the SY0-701 domains. The sample pack shows each document for an office in Geelong, Australia. Use your own workplace or the scenario; do not scan or test any network you are not authorised to test.
Sample document pack, 4 documents, filled in for the scenario
- Asset inventoryAsset list: Parkside Tax Consultants
- Risk registerRisk register with annualised loss
- ProcedureIncident response: ransomware and email account takeover
- ReportSecurity assessment report and priorities
Read inside the course and download as a workbook. The project is optional practice, marked when you submit it; the certificate needs only the modules and the final assessment.
Course content
13 modules 路 121 lessons 路 15h 11m
In order, at whatever pace suits you. Each module ends with a practice task that builds on the last.
- 01How the Security+ exam works1 lesson10m
- 02Security controls and fundamental concepts (1.1 to 1.2)8 lessons1h 4m
- 03Change management and cryptography (1.3 to 1.4)10 lessons1h 27m
- 04Threat actors, vectors and social engineering (2.1 to 2.2)6 lessons48m
- 05Types of vulnerability (2.3)14 lessons1h 14m
- 06Malicious activity and indicators (2.4)15 lessons1h 45m
- 07Mitigation and security architecture (2.5 to 3.2)13 lessons1h 55m
- 08Protecting data and building resilience (3.3 to 3.4)8 lessons1h 2m
Requirements
- Who it is for
- Beginner in security. Basic networking knowledge (IP addresses, ports, what a firewall does) helps; CompTIA recommends some IT experience before sitting the exam.
- Software
- None required. A free virtual lab (for example a Linux virtual machine) is useful for the project. What to download, and how
- Hardware
- Any computer with a browser.
Software you need
What to download, where from, what it costs and how to install it. Every link goes to the maker's own site, never a mirror.
Nothing is required
A free Linux virtual machine is useful for the project.
Optional
Useful, not needed to finish the course.
- 01Free
Oracle VirtualBox
Oracle
- Runs on
- Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon), Linux and Solaris hosts
- Account
- None needed
The VirtualBox platform packages are free and open source under GPL version 3. The separate Extension Pack is free only for personal and educational use (PUEL licence); business use of the Extension Pack needs a commercial licence from Oracle.
Steps
- 1.Open virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads.
- 2.Click the package for your host system (for example, Windows hosts).
- 3.Run the installer and accept the network driver prompts.
- 4.Open VirtualBox, click New, choose your ISO file (for example Ubuntu or Windows) and follow the wizard.
- Turn on hardware virtualisation (Intel VT-x or AMD-V) in your PC's BIOS or UEFI if VirtualBox says it is not available.
- You do not need the Extension Pack for normal lab work. Install it only if you need its extra features and your use is personal or educational.
Official download pagevirtualbox.org - 02Free
Ubuntu Desktop
Canonical
- Runs on
- 64-bit PC (Intel or AMD) or ARM 64-bit. Recommended: 2 GHz dual-core processor, 6 GB RAM, 25 GB free disk space.
- Account
- None needed
- Size
- About 5.9 GB ISO (Intel or AMD 64-bit, current LTS)
Free to download and use. LTS releases get five years of free security updates, which Ubuntu Pro can extend.
Steps
- 1.Open ubuntu.com/download/desktop and download the LTS ISO. For ROS 2 courses, get 24.04 LTS or 22.04 LTS from releases.ubuntu.com instead.
- 2.To try it safely, create a new virtual machine in VirtualBox and attach the ISO.
- 3.To install on a real PC, write the ISO to a USB stick (8 GB or more) and boot from it.
- 4.Follow the installer, then run Software Updater when it finishes.
- Your course may name a specific release. ROS 2 Humble needs Ubuntu 22.04 and ROS 2 Jazzy needs Ubuntu 24.04.
- Give a virtual machine at least 25 GB of disk space.
Official download pageubuntu.comAlternatives
- Ubuntu 24.04 LTS: Use for ROS 2 Jazzy.
- Ubuntu 22.04 LTS: Use for ROS 2 Humble.
- Windows Subsystem for Linux: Run Ubuntu inside Windows 10 or 11 without a virtual machine.
Checked against each maker's own page on 27 September 2026. Trial lengths and editions change; the maker's page is the final word.
CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Exam Prep at a glance
CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Exam Prep is a free, self-paced online course from EDWartens for candidates preparing for the CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 exam, and IT staff moving into security. It has 13 modules and 15h 11m of video lessons by Professor Messer, with written notes and worked problems, a practical project with a document pack and a 15-question final assessment (pass mark 60%). Learning is free with an account; an optional certificate with a public verification code is issued when you pass. Last updated 27 September 2026.
All course factsHide course facts
- Price
- Free, for good. No trial, no card. The only paid item is the optional certificate, a small one-off fee.
- Who it is for
- Candidates preparing for the CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 exam, and IT staff moving into security
- Format
- 13 self-paced modules, 15h 11m of video, written notes, a practice task per module and one final assessment.
- Level
- Beginner. Beginner in security. Basic networking knowledge (IP addresses, ports, what a firewall does) helps; CompTIA recommends some IT experience before sitting the exam.
- Brand
- CompTIA
- Software
- None required. A free virtual lab (for example a Linux virtual machine) is useful for the project.
- Hardware
- Any computer with a browser.
- Certificate
- Optional EDWartens Certificate of Completion, verifiable by code. Not a vendor credential.
- Video lessons by
- Professor Messer (independent creators, credited below)
- Language
- English
- Last updated
- 27 September 2026
A shareable EDWartens certificate
Finish every module and pass the final assessment, and the optional EDWartens certificate is yours. It carries a unique verification code on a public page anyone can check, so it stands up when a recruiter looks it up. See it below.
The course itself stays free whether or not you ever buy one.
Stuck? Ask a practising engineer
A free course usually means a comment section and hope. This one does not. Every module has an Ask-your-trainer panel that reaches the same engineers who teach our paid programme: people who commission panels for a living, not moderators.
Pairs well with
Cybersecurity 路 FreeOT Security Assessment: Testing a Plant Without Stopping ItThe assessment half of OT security, for engineers who have to do it on a plant that is running. Rules of engagement first, then passive capture, careful enumeration, what an attacker does with a protocol that has no authentication, the Windows machines nobody mentions, the logging that would have caught it, and a report written in the language of consequence.
Cybersecurity 路 FreeICS Security Foundations: Control Systems, Defence in Depth and the 62443 RequirementsThe ground floor of industrial cyber security, taught through the systems themselves: what a DCS, PLC, SCADA, BACS and safety system actually do, the Purdue model, why OT is not IT, how industrial attacks unfold, defence in depth and a layered architecture, then the seven ISA/IEC 62443 foundational requirements one at a time, asset registers, segmentation, discovery, IDS and IPS, secure remote access, SIEM and endpoint protection.
Cybersecurity 路 FreeOT and ICS Cybersecurity with ISA/IEC 62443Defensive cybersecurity for plants: ICS/OT fundamentals and threats, protocols, the Purdue model, zones and conduits, secure architecture, the ISA/IEC 62443 series, security levels, risk assessment, asset inventory, vulnerability management, incident response, governance, implementation, an introduction to authorised OT testing and certification mock tests.
Cybersecurity 路 FreeCybersecurity for PLC Programmers: Hardening Siemens and Rockwell ControllersHarden the PLCs you already program: Siemens access levels, know-how, copy and project protection, secure communication and users, Rockwell source protection, CIP Security and zones, and the Top 20 Secure PLC Coding Practices, from the people who wrote them.More free courses: Free cyber security courses 路 Free IT security and SOC analyst courses
Learner reviews
No reviews yet
Reviews here are written only by learners who have finished every module of CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Exam Prep, and they are published exactly as written. Finish the course and yours will be the first.
Common questions
Is this the official Security+ course?
No. It is an independent free course built on Professor Messer's free SY0-701 videos, credited on every module. CompTIA and Security+ are trademarks of CompTIA, and neither CompTIA nor Professor Messer is affiliated with EDWartens.
Does passing this course give me the Security+ certification?
No. The certification is awarded only by passing CompTIA's exam, booked and paid for through CompTIA. This course prepares you for it and gives you an EDWartens certificate of completion.
Does it cover every exam objective?
Yes. The course follows Professor Messer's complete SY0-701 series, which covers every objective across the five domains, in 12 teaching modules.
How long does the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Exam Prep course take?
About 19 hours of lessons, notes and practice questions, plus about 10 hours for the project. Spread over several weeks, with time for revision, is a realistic plan before booking the exam.
Do I need experience?
No, though basic networking knowledge helps. CompTIA recommends some IT experience before sitting the exam itself.
Is the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Exam Prep course really free?
Yes. Every module, the notes, the 130 practice questions, the project and the final assessment. The only paid item is the EDWartens certificate, if you want it.
Is SY0-701 still the current exam?
Yes, as of September 2026. CompTIA expects to launch Security+ V8 (SY0-801) on or around 17 November 2026, and SY0-701 stays available for a period after that, so check CompTIA's retirement date before you book.
What is the project in the CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Exam Prep course?
A security assessment of a 25-person accounting office in Geelong, Australia: an asset list, a risk register with SLE and ALE figures, an incident response procedure and a prioritised report mapped to the five exam domains. It doubles as a revision checklist and a portfolio piece.
What you walk away with
Your certificate for CompTIA Security+ (SY0-701) Exam Prep
Finish the course, pass the final, and this is the document with your name on it.
Verifiable by anyone
Adds to LinkedIn in one click
QR code on the certificate
Names what you can do
A permanent link
Earned, not attended
Learning is free. The certificate is optional.
Add it now and pay only when you have finished the course, or come back for it later. One-off, US$23.99, with a receipt.
Issued by EDWartens, the training division of Wartens, as a Certificate of Completion for this self-paced course. Sold by Wartens Ltd (England and Wales). It is not a vendor certification, a university award or a CPD-accredited activity, and it does not certify competence on live equipment. Delivered electronically; see the refund policy.
Credits
Who made the video lessons
The video lessons in this course were created by the people below, not by EDWartens. Every lesson streams from its creator's own YouTube channel; EDWartens neither hosts nor sells that footage, and the creators are not affiliated with EDWartens and do not endorse this course. What EDWartens wrote is the study plan, the notes, the practice tasks and the assessments.
- Professor Messerthe complete free CompTIA SY0-701 Security+ Training Course, every lesson in this course
If you are one of these creators and would like a lesson removed or credited differently, write to info@wartens.com.