CompTIA Security+ Renewal Guide – Continuing Education Reqs

Nothing can beat the practical experience but holding a certification helps you get noticed. Being certified also gives you the confidence that you are capable of doing work right. The demand for certified professionals is arising worldwide. Thus it has become important to hold a few certifications to stand out among others. If you are an IT professional, there are many certifications available that you can seek. And if you are working in IT security, some of the good IT security certifications to go for are offered by CompTIA, a non-profit association offering IT certifications. One of the many useful certifications by CompTIA is Security+ certification. You can read the comprehensive CompTIA Continuing Education Program.

In this article, we are going to discuss the CompTIA Security+ renewal process.

The CompTIA Security+ certification emphasizes practical skills, and you are better prepared to handle a wide variety of security-related issues. You learn a lot about core security-related skills required for managing security risks, incidents, enterprise networks, cloud and hybrid operations, and a whole lot of other security-related tasks.

The CompTIA Security+ certification expires 3 years from the date you earn it. The following is the summary of the CompTIA Security+ renewal requirements.

CompTIA Security+ Renewal

We will go over the three steps you must go through for your CompTIA Security+ renewal.

1- Earn CompTIA Security+ Continuing Education Units (CEU)

The first step in the CompTIA Security+ renewal process is to earn Continuing Education Units (CEU). A single Continuing Education Unit is equivalent to 1 hour of activity. The Security+ renewal requires 50 CEUs. The activities you can do to earn 50 CEUs can be of different types, such as:

Complete training or higher education

You can take a course or short training of your interest. It could be an IT course or course on another professional subject. You can take it through self-paced learning, classroom training, or live online. You even have more options for your training and a course. For example, if you know about an upcoming IT conference in your area, you can attend that. You can complete an American Council on Education (ACE) course, a college course, or attend a live webinar. So, you see there are a lot of options to earn your CEUs. There is a limit on how many CEUs you can earn from each of these activities for CompTIA Security+ renewal. We described these limits in the table below.

You must however ensure that at least 50% of the training or course content must be related to the exam objectives for the CompTIA certification that you are renewing. We at Master of Project Academy offer a 60 CEU CompTIA training bundle. This bundle includes four complete professional courses.

These are the IT Service Management Certification course, Lean Six Sigma Green Belt course, Agile Scrum Certification course, and Microsoft Project course. These courses earn you 60 CEUs. Once you complete these courses, you will have been prepared for the relevant certifications too. So in the future, if you wish to get more certifications, this is the most suitable certification course option for you to buy.

Benefits of 60 CEU Course Bundle

This 60 CEU course bundle is accessible online and from any location. This is the complete online self-paced learning so you can access the course lectures at your own convenience.  This bundle comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and once you complete the courses, you will get course completion certificates too.

This CompTIA 60 CEU bundle can be purchased with a monthly, yearly, or lifetime subscription. The per month price of the bundle is $197 and it is best if you want to finish the courses fast. The annual subscription costs $297 and is best if you want to learn at your own pace. The lifetime subscription is available for $397.

In addition to this 60 CEU CompTIA Security+ renewal bundle, we also offer a free CompTIA Security+ renewal bundle, which you can enroll in to earn 2 CEUs. This free CompTIA security+ continuing education bundle includes free courses on Lean Six Sigma, IT Service Management (ITSM), Agile Scrum, and Prince2. Each course will earn you 0.5 CEUs. In this free bundle, you will also get tips and tricks for renewing your CompTIA certification and CEU submission guidance.

Earn CompTIA Certifications

If you rather like to enroll in another certification offered by CompTIA, you can do so. However, the CompTIA certification that you can do to renew your Security+ certification must be a high-level certification. The higher-level CompTIA certifications that can renew the Security+ certification are CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP+), CompTIA CySA+, and CompTIA PenTest+.

One of the benefits of doing another CompTIA certification to renew your Security+ certification is that when you complete another CompTIA certification, your Security+ certification will automatically be renewed. So, you will not need to submit any document or go through any procedure of renewing it. In addition, the fees for renewing the Security+ certification will be waived off.

Earn Non-CompTIA IT industry certifications

Earning a non-CompTIA certification will also renew your Security+ certification. CompTIA has created a list on their website of the certification bodies whose certification you can do to renew your Security+ certification.

Master of Project Academy offers Free CompTIA CEU Training bundle and earns you 2 CEU hours for FREE. Enroll now!

These certification bodies include Google, Amazon, McAfee, Cloud Security Alliance, Broadcom/Symantec, Microsoft, ISACA, EC-Council, SABSA, ISC (2), EnCase, Cisco, CheckPoint, GIAC, and Juniper.

Note that not all the certifications that are offered by these organizations will renew your Security+ certification. The comprehensive list of specific certifications that you can do is on the CompTIA website.

Participate in IT industry activities

This CompTIA Security+ renewal option allows you to earn CEUs by engaging in a variety of IT-related activities. So, what is it that you can do to earn CEUs from this option? Well, you can teach or mentor someone, create instructional material, or even participate in a CompTIA exam development workshop. If you teach or mentor anyone, you will need to submit a lesson plan or syllabus that you created, a description of the content, and the date it was taught.

For mentoring as well, you will need to submit a document containing the objectives of the mentoring and a statement telling how it related to your CompTIA exam that you are renewing. This document must include the date and length of time when mentoring was done. It must also be signed by the mentee. If you create instructional material, submit a lesson plan or syllabus, copy of the material that you created, and mention the date the material was created.

Publish an article, blog post, white paper, or a book

For CompTIA Security+ renewal, you can also write and publish articles, books, documents, or a blog. There is a limit on how many maximum CEUs you can earn from these activities. From publishing an article or white paper you can earn a maximum of 16 CEUs. From writing a book you can earn 40 CEUs. Finally, you can earn 16 CEUs maximum from publishing a blog.

If you write an article or white, paper, you must submit to CompTIA a copy or URL of your published work and also a description of the content written. For a blog post, submit the URL or copy of your published work and a description of the content written. For a book also, you will need to submit a URL where your book is published or can be purchased.

Gain related work experience

You can claim a total of 9 CEUs from your work experience and not more than 3 CEUs in a year. Also, at least 50% of your work experience must be related to the exam objectives for the CompTIA certification that you will be renewing. To claim CompTIA security+ renewal CEUs for your work experience, a letter needs to be submitted from your employer. On the company letterhead, your employer must write your name, job title, the year for which you are submitting your work experience, the activities you performed, and the signature of your manager or supervisor.

Anything other than a letter, such as work orders, work performance reports are not acceptable. Remember that if you hold more than one CompTIA certification, you only need to renew the highest-level certification and it will renew all your lower-level certifications as well.

2- Pay CompTIA Security+ Renewal Fee

You must pay the CompTIA Security+ renewal fee before submitting the earned CEUs. If you are renewing your certification by passing the CertMaster CE or completing a higher-level CompTIA certification, then you do not need to pay the fee. The total fee for the Security+ renewal is $150.

3- Submit CompTIA Security+ CEUs

After paying the renewal fee, you may now submit the earned CEUs. Once done, you will keep the good standing for your CompTIA Security+ certification for three years.

Summary

Holding a certification is crucial these days in order to compete in today’s job market. Thus, renewing your current certification is necessary to maintain your credential. It is also an indicator of professional dedication. The indicator shows your continuing interest in the subject. It also shows your desire to keep yourself up to date by fulfilling the certification’s continuing education requirement.

CompTIA Security+ is a great certification but its renewal comes with a little cost. We have listed above the many options that you can choose for CompTIA Security+ renewal. We also mentioned that Master of Project Academy offers paid and free CompTIA Security+ continuing education options. The 60 CEU CompTIA Security+ renewal training bundle not only renews your Security+ certification but also helps you pass another professional certification exam. We encourage you to enroll in our free 2 CEUs CompTIA Security+ renewal bundle to get started.

In short, renewing your CompTIA Security+ certification is a very easy process. It will show your employer that your skills are current. So go ahead and renew your Security+ certification now. Master of Project Academy is also available to help you in this regard.