On November 17, CompTIA is set to launch the first new version of Security+ in three years, and the version you can sit today will stop being offered in English on June 11, 2027. That leaves nearly seven months where both exams exist at once, which is plenty of room to make a bad call in either direction: rushing into an exam you are not ready for, or parking a study plan because a newer version is on the horizon.
Most of the coverage so far boils down to “wait or don’t wait.” This guide takes a more practical route. It starts with which dates CompTIA has actually published, walks through what the final Security+ SY0-801 objectives change (the document is at version 2.0, so it is no longer a draft), and then ties the decision to the date you will realistically be ready. Everything here is current as of October 6, 2026.
Which Security+ Dates Are Confirmed and Which Are Still Estimates
What CompTIA Lists on Its Own Pages
CompTIA’s Security+ V8 page gives the exam code SY0-801, a launch date of November 17, 2026, and English as the exam language. The matching Security+ V7 page is where the retirement schedule lives. It also shows SY0-701 launched on November 7, 2023, so the retiring exam will have run a little over three and a half years.
- SY0-801 launch date: November 17, 2026
- SY0-701 retirement, English: June 11, 2027
- SY0-701 retirement in Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Thai: August 13, 2027
- Format for both versions: a maximum of 90 questions, multiple-choice and performance-based, 90 minutes, passing score of 750 on a scale of 100 to 900
The language detail matters more than it looks. If you test in one of those four languages, you get an extra two months on SY0-701, and SY0-801 is listed in English only.
What Is Still Unofficial
A preview date of around October 20 has circulated among training providers, and those providers describe it as coming from CompTIA’s instructor community rather than a public notice. Treat it as background noise rather than a date to plan around. CompTIA also has not published a price for SY0-801 on the pages above, so any figure you see quoted for it is a guess.
What the Final SY0-801 Objectives Actually Change
The exam mechanics stay the same, as the list above shows. What moves is the weighting of the five domains and a fair amount of the content inside them. CompTIA’s recommended experience also stays put: a security administrator with two years of hands-on experience.
| Domain | SY0-701 weight | SY0-801 weight | Shift |
|---|---|---|---|
| General Security Concepts | 12% | 16% | Up 4 points |
| Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Mitigations (701) / Attacks (801) | 22% | 24% | Up 2 points |
| Security Architecture | 18% | 19% | Up 1 point |
| Security Operations | 28% | 27% | Down 1 point |
| Security Program Management and Oversight | 20% | 14% | Down 6 points |
Governance Shrinks While Core Concepts Grow
The biggest single swing is Domain 5. Program management and oversight, the policy, risk, audit, and compliance material, drops from 20% of the exam to 14%. Domain 1 moves the other way, from 12% to 16%, even though it now has three objectives instead of four. Fewer objectives carrying a bigger share means each one is worth more points, so the change-management objective and the cryptography objective deserve real study time instead of a skim. Zero Trust principles now sit in the very first objective, 1.1, next to the CIA triad and least privilege.
A Dedicated AI Objective, Plus AI Threaded Through Three More
The headline addition is objective 2.6, which asks candidates to summarize threats and vulnerabilities tied to AI usage. CompTIA’s list under it includes model manipulation, poisoning, prompt injection, data loss, bias, explainability, hallucinations, jailbreaking, evasion, privacy, ethical considerations, session hijacking, and code execution. AI also shows up in three other places:
- Objective 2.4 adds large language models to the list of attack surfaces, alongside misconfiguration, shadow IT, and public object storage.
- Objective 2.5 adds quishing and deepfakes to the social engineering list.
- Objective 4.6 lists AI capabilities, including agentic, chatbot, predictive analysis, and AI-augmented baselines, under automation and orchestration.
Security+ remains a general security exam, so this is awareness-level coverage rather than a specialty. Candidates who want to go deeper on securing AI systems have a separate credential for that, covered in our breakdown of what CompTIA’s SecAI+ exam actually tests.
Incident Response Gets a Negotiation Step
Operations is still the largest domain at 27%, and it has been reshaped more than the one-point drop suggests. The incident response objective (4.7) now lists negotiation between containment and eradication, which reflects how ransomware cases play out in practice. Objective 4.6 builds automation, guardrails, and CI/CD into the exam, and the audit and assessment objective (5.5) now names MITRE ATT&CK, the Cyber Kill Chain, and the Diamond Model of Intrusion Analysis. Objective count across the exam falls from 28 to 27, but the topics that remain are more specific.
Topics the V8 Document No Longer Lists
Reading the SY0-801 objectives against SY0-701, several items present in the older document do not appear in the new one:
- SD-WAN and SASE, with Security Service Edge (SSE) appearing in objective 3.2 instead
- Containerization as an architecture concept
- Blockchain
- Key stretching
CompTIA says plainly that its bulleted examples are not exhaustive, so absence from the document is not a promise that nothing on these topics will appear. The sensible reading is to spend less time on them, not none.
Which Exam to Sit Based on When You Will Be Ready
The right answer depends less on which version is “better” and more on your calendar. A rough sorting by readiness date:
- Ready before November 17: SY0-701 is the only exam you can book, so the question answers itself.
- Ready between mid-November 2026 and early spring 2027: either version works. If you have weeks of SY0-701 material behind you, finishing it is usually cheaper than restarting.
- Ready in April 2027 or later: build your plan around SY0-801. Booking SY0-701 for the final few weeks before June 11 leaves no room for a retake if the first attempt goes badly.
When SY0-701 Is the Better Call
Sit SY0-701 if you are already deep into a study plan, if your employer or a contract deadline needs the credential this year, or if the extra AI content is irrelevant to your role. You also lose nothing by taking the older exam: CompTIA certifications run three years from the day you pass, so a credential earned on SY0-701 in early 2027 stays valid into 2030, well after the exam itself is gone.
When Waiting for SY0-801 Is the Better Call
Waiting makes sense if your realistic exam date is April 2027 or later, if a job posting or training requirement names V8 specifically, or if you are starting from zero and want the study plan to match the exam you will actually sit. Avoid waiting only for the sake of waiting. A launch date can still move, and a delay with no exam date booked is how a three-month plan becomes a nine-month one.
What Does Not Change Either Way
Both versions share the same question limit, time limit, and passing score, and both certifications last three years before you need to renew through CompTIA’s continuing education program. Many candidates treat Security+ as a first rung before a longer track such as CISSP, and for that path the shifts at ISC2 matter at least as much, as laid out in our guide to ISC2’s 2026 changes for CC, CCSP, and CISSP candidates.
Cost is the other constant. Third-party cost trackers put a US exam voucher anywhere from $425 to $439 depending on when they last checked, and CompTIA’s V7 page advertises bundles that include Retake Assurance, so check the live store price before you buy. A failed attempt otherwise means a second voucher, and a voucher bought for one version may not suit the other, so confirm its expiry date and which exam it covers before paying.
What the Job Market Data Says About Security Skills
No government dataset tracks Security+ holders on their own, but the occupation it feeds into is well measured. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that information security analysts earned a median of $129,180 in 2025, that the occupation held about 192,900 jobs, and that employment is projected to grow 21% from 2025 to 2035, adding roughly 40,600 positions. BLS lists a bachelor’s degree as the typical entry requirement, so Security+ works best as one credential among several rather than a substitute for experience.
That is also why the version question should not cost anyone sleep. A credential earned on either exam carries the same name and the same three-year clock, and the hands-on skill behind it is what decides how far it takes you.
Preparing for SY0-701 Now Without Wasting the Work
Study time spent on SY0-701 transfers better than people expect, because the biggest domains barely moved. Security Operations is 28% in one version and 27% in the other, and Security Architecture is 18% and 19%. The material that carries straight across includes:
- Identity and access management, including SSO, federation, MFA, and access control models
- Vulnerability management, from scanning and prioritization through reporting
- Logging, monitoring, and SIEM concepts
- Incident response phases and digital forensics basics
- Resilience and recovery, including backups, RTO, and RPO
If you are working toward the current exam, a question bank is useful mainly for finding weak domains rather than memorizing answers. DirectCertify’s SY0-701 practice test with 902 questions was last updated on October 1, 2026, and it covers the version you can book today. DirectCertify does not carry SY0-801 yet, so anyone planning to wait for V8 will need to confirm what is available when the exam launches.
A note on sourcing: DirectCertify is an independent certification prep provider, and nothing here is affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by CompTIA. Launch dates, voucher prices, and retirement schedules can shift, so confirm the current details on CompTIA’s own Security+ pages before you book or buy anything.
