CompTIA, a global provider of vendor-neutral certifications, today unveiled a new security exam to prepare the global IT workforce for cyber threats.

The CompTIA Advanced Security Practitioner (CASP) exam is included in U.S. Department of Defense Directive 8570.01-M, and used by Dell and HP to train advanced security personnel. It has been updated to help security teams combat rising threats from malware and organised cybercrime.

The technical and task-oriented exam, which is taken by elite cyber security teams at major corporations around the world, includes simulated real-life security situations.

The CASP certification validates competency in the key fields of enterprise security, risk management, incident response, research and analysis; integration of computing, communications and business disciplines; and technical integration of enterprise components.

CASP is intended for IT professionals with at least ten years’ experience in IT administration and five years hands-on technical security experience in job roles such as information security analyst, security architect, cyber security risk manager and cyber security risk analyst.

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It is accredited by ANSI as showing compliance towards the ISO/IEC 17024 Conformity Assessment, the international standard designed to ensure that certification bodies around the world operate in a consistent, comparable and reliable manner.

The first to market with CompTIA-approved preparatory training is Skillsoft with self-paced online courseware that includes engaging rich-media lessons with hands on practice, ‘how to’ videos for quick nuggets of instruction, live one-to-one mentoring for personal support, and practice exams.

“The roll call of cyber attacks continues to grow and more are surely on the way,” said Todd Thibodeaux, president and CEO at CompTIA. “To help combat the growing threat of malware, individual hackers and organised hacking groups, we’ve updated the CASP exam to address the latest threats and to better explore the troubleshooting processes security professionals rely on to keep data, devices and networks secure.”

James Stanger, senior director of product development at CompTIA, added: “Each hack is unique. It takes technical knowledge and creativity to combat these threats. These advanced skills are assessed in the CASP exam.”