CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst (CySA+)

CompTIA Cybersecurity Analyst, commonly called CySA+, is a vendor-neutral certification for defensive security professionals who monitor environments, analyze threats, manage vulnerabilities, respond to incidents, and communicate security risk. The currently active exam is CS0-003, also called CySA+ V3. It combines multiple-choice and performance-based questions that test applied analysis rather than simple terminology.

CS0-003 allows a maximum of 85 questions in 165 minutes and requires 750 on a 100-900 scale. The domains are Security Operations, Vulnerability Management, Incident Response Management, and Reporting and Communication. Candidates should be able to interpret logs, network activity, endpoint evidence, vulnerability findings, threat intelligence, and incident timelines.

CompTIA has announced CySA+ V4 for June 2026, with an expected CS0-004 exam launch around June 23, 2026. As of June 14, 2026, CS0-003 remains the active exam. Candidates planning a later test date should check CompTIA's live exam page for overlap, retirement, and migration information before scheduling.

CySA+ is designed for SOC analysts, cybersecurity analysts, vulnerability analysts, threat hunters, incident responders, detection analysts, and security engineers in early-to-mid career roles. CompTIA recommends Network+, Security+, or equivalent knowledge and approximately four years of hands-on experience in incident response or SOC work.

Candidates should understand networking, operating systems, identity, cloud, security tools, common attacks, risk, and evidence handling. Practical experience with SIEM queries, EDR telemetry, packet analysis, vulnerability scanners, threat intelligence, forensic artifacts, and incident documentation is highly valuable.

Practice analyzing evidence rather than memorizing tool names. Review authentication, DNS, proxy, firewall, endpoint, cloud, and email logs. Build hypotheses from indicators, validate them across independent data sources, and distinguish normal administration from attacker behavior. Learn common patterns such as beaconing, password spraying, lateral movement, persistence, and exfiltration.

Prioritize vulnerabilities using exposure, exploitation, asset importance, and compensating controls. During incident practice, preserve evidence and remove attacker persistence before recovery. Write both technical incident summaries and short executive reports. Because V4 is approaching, confirm which exam code you will take and use objectives that match that code.

Certoga's CS0-003 bank contains 110 original analytical questions covering monitoring, vulnerability validation, incident response, evidence collection, ransomware recovery, password spraying, metrics, and compensating controls. The scenarios emphasize defensible decisions and realistic SOC reasoning.