CompTIA CySA+ Pass Rate: What Is Sourceable

Last updated 2026-08-23 — the article text's own revision date; dated evidence on this page carries its own check date. See the Citation Ledger at the foot for this page's sources.

CompTIA did not publish a CySA+ candidate pass-rate percentage on the official V4 page Learnerside live-verified on 2026-08-23. The page confirms CS0-004, a 750 passing score on a 100-900 scale, a maximum of 85 questions, and a 165-minute duration; CompTIA's landing page identifies V4 as the most up-to-date version. Decide from analyst readiness and hands-on evidence, not an unsupported pass-rate number.

Next decision

Use the dated evidence above to decide whether CySA+ fits your current security experience, analyst target, and lab record. Review the SOC Analyst decision behind this CySA+ readiness check.

Key takeaways

• V4 / CS0-004 is the current study target live-verified from CompTIA on 2026-08-23; V3 / CS0-003 follows a separate retirement timeline.
• The V4 page recommends about 4 years in a SOC analyst or vulnerability analyst role as background, not as a registration requirement.
• The useful planning evidence is role readiness: O*NET tasks, BLS occupation context, Learnerside's qualitative posting sample, and your own lab evidence.
• AI can support study tasks, but current AI usage data is not a job-loss or hiring forecast, and every technical claim needs primary-source verification.

More on CompTIA CySA+

• Is CompTIA CySA+ worth it?
• CompTIA CySA+ salary context
• CompTIA CySA+ certification page

The decision behind the pass-rate question

The useful question is whether your security foundations, analyst practice, and lab evidence match SOC, vulnerability, incident-response, and security-operations work. Use the dated facts below to plan that evidence and verify the current exam identity with CompTIA before scheduling.

• Are certification pass rates real?
• How to spot a fake certification statistic

The current official-source boundary

Learnerside live-verified CompTIA's V4 page on 2026-08-23. It lists CS0-004, a maximum of 85 questions, 165 minutes, a 750 passing score on a 100-900 scale, and about 4 years of recommended SOC analyst or vulnerability analyst experience. CompTIA's landing page calls V4 the most up-to-date version while V3 retires on a staged timeline. Verify the selected exam, objectives, and checkout price before scheduling or buying prep.

• CompTIA CySA+ overview
• CySA+ eligibility and background

Why provider pass claims are not the same thing

One training provider's page is worth reading as a warning rather than as a planning number. We re-read it on 2026-07-05 and it still carried first-attempt and pass-guarantee marketing language. That can describe a provider's own offer, funnel, selected students, retake policy, delivery model, or sales promise. It does not become a global CompTIA CySA+ pass rate. The population is different, the denominator is unclear, and the incentive is commercial. A provider claim can help you ask sharper questions before buying training: What is counted as a pass? First attempts only? Retakes? How many students? Which exam version? What happens to people who defer, withdraw, or never test? Without those answers, treat the claim as marketing context.

• Are certification exam prep sites trustworthy?
• Certification stat red flags

What CySA+ is actually trying to signal

CySA+ is not a general beginner IT credential. The V4 page checked on 2026-08-23 lists no formal prerequisite and recommends about 4 years in a SOC analyst or vulnerability analyst role. That recommendation should shape the decision even though it is not a registration gate. In Learnerside's reading, detection, triage, vulnerability management, incident response, reporting, and security-operations judgment are the work preparation should build toward. If you are still learning basic networking, identity, operating systems, and security vocabulary, Security+ or hands-on SOC foundations are usually a cleaner first move.

• Is CompTIA CySA+ worth it?
• Security+ pass-rate evidence

Use role evidence instead of pass-rate folklore

The role map is more useful than a pass-rate rumor. Learnerside connects CySA+ to Cybersecurity Analyst and SOC Analyst work, mapped here to ONET/BLS Information Security Analysts. ONET's Information Security Analysts profile supports task context such as planning safeguards, monitoring virus/security reports, encrypting transmissions, using firewalls, performing risk assessments, modifying security files, reviewing violations, documenting security procedures, and discussing access or security issues with users. Those tasks are a readiness checklist. If your study plan only memorizes exam terms but does not build alert triage, log analysis, vulnerability prioritization, and incident writeups, you are not preparing for the role signal CySA+ is supposed to carry.

• Cybersecurity Analyst role
• SOC Analyst role

BLS context: useful, but not a CySA+ outcome

The BLS data is strong occupation context and weak certification-outcome evidence. Learnerside's Cybersecurity Analyst and SOC Analyst samples use BLS OEWS May 2025 Information Security Analysts data: 190,650 national employment and a 129,180 USD national median annual wage. BLS Employment Projections show 28.5 percent projected employment change for Information Security Analysts from 2024 to 2034 and 16 thousand annual openings. Those figures are useful because they describe the mapped occupation. They do not mean CySA+ pays 129,180 USD, they do not prove that CySA+ creates a job, and they do not replace local employer research. Use them to understand the occupation, then check whether your target employers ask for analyst, SOC, SIEM, incident-response, vulnerability-management, cloud, and scripting evidence.

• Cybersecurity analyst salary context
• SOC analyst path

What the sample emphasizes

Learnerside's qualitative employer-language sample points in the same direction as the role evidence. In Learnerside's SOC Analyst public posting pilot, recurring terms included cybersecurity, SIEM, incident response, EDR, threat intelligence, threat hunting, Splunk, Python, AWS, Azure, CrowdStrike, PowerShell, GCP, and Linux, with Security+ and CySA+ appearing in some certification mentions. That sample is qualitative hiring language only: not representative demand, not proof of certification ROI, and not a year-over-year trend. It is still useful because it tells you how to make CySA+ more credible: pair the credential with a small evidence portfolio around alert triage, detection logic, vulnerability remediation decisions, incident notes, and the kinds of tools employers name in that sample.

• What employers ask for
• Do employers require certifications?

How AI changes CySA+ study and analyst work

For role context, Learnerside maps Cybersecurity Analyst and SOC Analyst to Information Security Analysts. Anthropic's May 2026 Economic Index dataset reports roughly 24 percent augmentation-style and roughly 76 percent automation-style Claude conversations for that shared SOC. That is descriptive usage data only: it does not say analysts are being replaced, that CySA+ is more or less valuable, or that a learner should expect a job outcome. Learnerside editorial advice, not a sourced finding: treat AI as a supervised study assistant, and require citations or tool documentation for every technical claim it produces before you trust it. Verify security details against primary documentation and hands-on labs rather than accepting model output at face value.

• How to use AI to study for IT certifications
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What to do next: a readiness plan

Use a path that practices the same vocabulary and tasks the postings in the sample and mapped role evidence emphasize. Step 1: compare your background with CompTIA's recommendation of about 4 years in SOC analyst or vulnerability analyst work. Step 2: confirm the selected V4 / CS0-004 exam, current objectives, and checkout price before buying prep. Step 3: build a small SOC lab habit: inspect alerts, read logs, map events to likely causes, and write a short incident note. Step 4: practice vulnerability triage by affected asset, business impact, exploitability, and remediation priority. Step 5: use AI to quiz and review your explanations, but verify technical claims. Step 6: compare your evidence against local hiring language before scheduling.

• Free CySA+ study resources
• CySA+ total cost

Bottom line: make CySA+ an analyst-readiness decision

Take CySA+ when you are moving from security foundations into SOC, incident response, vulnerability management, threat analysis, or security operations work and can pair the credential with hands-on evidence. Wait when networking, log analysis, incident practice, or a clear analyst target is still missing.

• CompTIA CySA+ overview

Frequently asked questions

Is the CySA+ passing score the same thing as a pass rate?

No. A passing score is the threshold a candidate must reach; a pass rate is the share of candidates who pass. The official V4 page checked on 2026-08-23 lists a 750 score on a 100-900 scale.

Is CySA+ a beginner cybersecurity certification?

Usually no. There may be no registration prerequisite, but the recommended background is about 4 years in a SOC analyst or vulnerability analyst role.

What should I use instead of a CySA+ pass-rate number?

Use official source status, version currency, role tasks, employer language, lab readiness, and your own weak areas. A readiness checklist is more actionable than an unsupported pass-rate percentage.

Does CySA+ guarantee a cybersecurity analyst job?

No. CySA+ can be a useful analyst signal, but it does not guarantee a job, salary, interview, or promotion. Pair it with SIEM, incident-response, vulnerability, scripting, and reporting evidence.

How should I use AI while preparing for CySA+?

Use AI to quiz, summarize, draft incident notes, and challenge your reasoning, but verify technical details in primary documentation and labs. Do not memorize AI-generated security facts without checking them.

Related, with the cited detail

• CompTIA CySA+ overview
• CySA+ eligibility and background
• Free CySA+ study resources
• CySA+ total cost
• Are certification pass rates real?
• Cybersecurity Analyst role
• SOC Analyst role
• What employers ask for