Having worked with Check Point’s solutions for a little over two years, I decided to begin my pursuit of the Check Point Certified Security Administrator (CCSA) R80 certification in earnest with the aim of passing the exam before this year draws to a close. Unfortunately, with a handful of exceptions, there appears to be a dearth of freely-accessible or otherwise affordable resources (certainly compared to Cisco, among other vendors) that is geared specifically towards studying for the exam.
Besides wanting a means of keeping myself motivated as I progress with my studies, it is having the above in mind that initially drove me to create this blog in the first place. As such, I hope that this series of upcoming posts will be beneficial to anybody else who is already studying - or thinking of studying - towards the certification. Each post will correspond to the nine objectives in the CCSA R80 study guide, and content will be subject to updates as and when necessary.
Lab Topology
I won’t take you through the steps of setting up a lab here, as this is already well-documented on YouTube and elsewhere (too many cooks spoil the broth, after all…). Check Point for Beginners and Magnus Holmberg break things down nicely enough if - like me - you’ve opted for VMware Workstation, while this video will cover those who prefer EVE-NG.
Whichever option you choose for your lab setup, be aware that your machine will need reasonably decent specifications if you want to get maximum mileage out of it. As a point of reference, the laptop that I use for my lab has 32 GB of RAM; a minimum of 16 GB is certainly a good starting point.
The topology that I’ll be referring to throughout these upcoming posts is simple enough, and replicates a standard company HQ and branch office setup:
The VM names are fairly self-explanatory as to their purpose. Both gateways in the HQ are set up in a high availability (HA) pair, although only one - HQ-FW01 - will be used in the beginning to keep things simple. Here, the ‘Internet’ is actually the pre-configured network through which VMware Workstation provides NAT services (named VMnet8 if you look at the Virtual Network Editor - your exact addressing will almost certainly be different to mine, however), and is used for outbound connectivity. The Domain Controller VM will also come more into play once we start covering Identity Awareness later on.
Learning Resources
I mentioned at the beginning that there’s a relative lack of CCSA-specific resources out there compared to other vendors, and I’m going to immediately rule out Check Point’s official training and courseware here since this is prohibitively expensive for the majority of people - unless you’re lucky enough to have an employer who will cover the cost for you. For example, a three-day training course at a Check Point Advanced Training Provider (ATP) would cost you $3,000 (which is just shy of £2,200 if you’re in the UK); meanwhile, a quote from a UK-based ATP priced the courseware at over £500.
With that said, however, there are a handful of very decent resources - both free and paid - out there. The below list of some that I’ve come across is by no means exhaustive; other suggestions and recommendations to add to this would very much be welcomed.
- Magnus Holmberg’s YouTube series (free) - possibly the most comprehensive free resource I’ve found. Some videos also go a little beyond what’s required for the CCSA, which isn’t a bad thing by any means.
- Check Point R80.40 Admin Guides (free) - not specifically for the exam, but a great resource nonetheless that goes into a fair bit of detail. Can be viewed in-browser or downloaded as a bundle of PDFs for offline reading.
- CBT Nuggets (paid) - although not necessarily the cheapest, their reputation as a leading training provider is well-deserved. The videos are easily digestable, and also come with virtual labs in which you can follow along if you don’t quite have the horsepower for your own.
- Orhan Ergun (paid) - lifetime access to more than 12 hours of content at a reasonable price.
Conclusion
Hopefully this has provided some useful nuggets of information relating to the CCSA R80 certification. Keep an eye out for my next post on the first topic in the exam objectives, Introduction to Check Point Architecture - in the meantime, thanks for reading.