How hard is Security+, really?
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Short answer
Security+ is wide rather than deep. No single topic is difficult; there are simply a lot of them, and the exam expects you to tell similar things apart rather than recite what they are.
The part that catches people out is not the security content at all — it is the networking knowledge the exam quietly assumes, plus a question format most candidates meet for the first time in the exam room.
Wide, not deep
Nothing in Security+ requires the kind of technical depth that takes years to build. You will not be asked to write code, reverse-engineer malware, or configure a firewall rule by hand.
What you will be asked to do, roughly sixty or seventy times in ninety minutes, is read a short scenario and pick the control, tool, or concept that fits it. That is a memory and discrimination task across a large surface — dozens of attack types, dozens of controls, several frameworks, cryptography vocabulary, and a body of governance terminology.
Which means the difficulty is cumulative rather than conceptual. People rarely fail because one topic defeated them. They fail because forty topics each slipped a little.
The assumption nobody warns you about
Security+ is written for someone who already understands how networks work. CompTIA says as much — Network+ and a couple of years of administration experience are the suggested background — but the suggestion reads like a polite recommendation rather than what it is: a description of the reader the questions were written for.
In practice, a meaningful share of questions lean on networking fundamentals without teaching them. If ports, subnets, and the path a packet takes are shaky for you, those questions are much harder than they look, and no amount of security study fixes them.
The quickest way to know
Could you explain, out loud and without looking anything up, what a subnet mask does and why blocking port 443 breaks a website? If not, that gap will cost you more points than any security topic — and it is the thing to decide about before you start .
Performance-based questions
Security+ opens with performance-based questions: interactive tasks rather than multiple choice, where you drag items into place, complete a configuration, or work through a small scenario. There are usually only a handful, but they sit at the front of the exam and they are harder to time.
Two things about them are worth knowing in advance, because they cause more damage through surprise than through difficulty:
- You can flag them and come back. The standard advice from people who have taken the exam is to move past them, clear the multiple choice where the points are dense and predictable, then return with whatever time is left.
- Spending fifteen minutes on the first one is the classic mistake. It is a small number of points bought with a sixth of your exam, and it puts you under time pressure for everything that follows.
Practice questions — ours included — are multiple choice. They prepare you for the knowledge a performance-based question draws on, not for its format. Knowing the format is coming, and having decided your strategy before you sit down, is most of what you can do about that.
How it compares to the certifications around it
| Certification | Relative difficulty | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A+ | Easier, but twice | Broader and more practical, and it is two separate exams — so more total effort at a lower level |
| Network+ | Comparable | Narrower subject, but goes deeper into it. Subnetting is harder than anything in Security+ |
| Security+ | — | Wide surface, assumes networking, several PBQs |
| CySA+ | Clearly harder | Analysis rather than recognition, and it expects hands-on experience you cannot substitute with study |
Who finds it hard, and who does not
The same exam produces very different experiences, and the variable is almost entirely your starting point.
- Already in a technical IT role: the concepts are familiar and the work is learning CompTIA’s vocabulary and question style. Genuinely not hard.
- Studied networking, no job yet: manageable. The volume of terminology is the obstacle, and volume yields to consistent contact.
- Career changer with no networking foundation: hard — not because Security+ is difficult, but because you are learning two subjects while being examined on one. If that is you and security is not yet a firm decision, it is worth knowing that the cloud entry certifications do not carry this particular problem: their ground is wide too, but none of it rests on a prerequisite nobody states.
The failure that has nothing to do with difficulty
Plenty of people who knew the material well enough still fail, and the reason is usually the same: they studied by reading until things looked familiar, then took an exam that tests whether you can choose between four familiar-looking options.
Recognition and discrimination feel identical while you are studying and behave completely differently under exam conditions. The only reliable way to tell them apart is answering questions you have not seen — which is why how you use practice questions matters more than how many hours you put in.
So — is it hard?
For someone with a networking foundation and a couple of months of consistent study: no. It is a fair exam that rewards preparation, and it does not contain traps.
For someone starting from scratch: yes, but not for the reason implied by the question. The difficulty is the amount of ground, the borrowed networking assumptions, and the discipline to test yourself rather than re-read. All three are addressable. None of them is about the exam being clever.
If you are deciding whether to commit, how long it takes from where you are is the more useful question — and worth knowing before you book, since a second attempt costs a second full voucher.
The one-line version
Not technically deep, but wide — and it assumes networking knowledge it never teaches. Fix that assumption first, expect performance-based questions at the start, and test yourself on unseen questions rather than re-reading.
Security+ question bank — join the waitlist
We are writing an adaptive Security+ bank now, built from the official exam objectives. Leave an email and we will tell you when it opens. Nothing else.
Keep reading
- DoD 8140 approved certifications: why there is no single list anymoreDoD 8140 replaced the old 8570 baseline-certification chart with a work-role qualification matrix. Here is how to find the certifications that actually count for your role.
- How long does it take to study for Security+?Most people need six to twelve weeks for Security+, but the number of weeks is the wrong thing to plan around. Here is what actually determines the timeline, and the readiness signal that replaces counting.
- Network+ or Security+ first? A decision, not a ruleYou can take Security+ without Network+ — there are no prerequisites. Whether you should depends on one thing: how comfortable you are with networking fundamentals right now.