We're Launching BlackHack Academy — and We're Starting With Security+

Today we're opening the doors to BlackHack Academy, and we're kicking things off with the one credential that matters most for anyone trying to break into cybersecurity: CompTIA Security+.

This isn't another video dump or a wall of flashcards. It's the same hands-on, attacker-defender-victim approach we teach inside BlackHack Society — built for people who want to actually understand security, not just memorize their way past a test.

Why Security+ first

If you're new to this field, Security+ is the credential employers ask for by name. More than 700,000 IT professionals hold Security+, largely because the U.S. Department of Defense approved it as meeting Directive 8140.03-M requirements, and it complies with ISO 17024 standards. It shows up in a huge share of entry-level cybersecurity job postings and is the standard baseline for federal and private-sector roles alike.

The current exam is SY0-701. It's the current and only active version — SY0-601 retired on July 31, 2024 — so if you're starting in 2026, this is your only target. Anything still teaching the old version will leave gaps in your prep.

Heads up on timing: CompTIA announced a refresh of the SY0-701 objectives, with the updated objective set integrating into live exam delivery on July 1, 2026. All certifications earned under either objective version carry identical validity and renewal requirements, so this doesn't change the value of what you earn — but it's exactly why we built our program around the live objectives and keep it current.

What you're actually being tested on

The exam is a maximum of 90 questions, a mix of multiple-choice and performance-based, in 90 minutes, with a passing score of 750 on a 100–900 scale. It breaks into five domains: General Security Concepts (12%), Threats, Vulnerabilities and Mitigations (22%), Security Architecture (18%), Security Operations (28%), and Security Program Management and Oversight (20%).

Notice that Security Operations is the single biggest slice. CompTIA streamlined the exam from six domains to five, putting more emphasis on practical security operations and less on cryptography theory — and the performance-based questions reward people who've actually done the work: analyzing logs, reading network diagrams, making real incident-response decisions. That's exactly the kind of muscle our labs are built to develop.

How we teach it differently

Most people who fail Security+ don't fail from studying too little — they fail from treating it like a vocabulary quiz. Veteran instructors will tell you the same thing: people who treat it like a craft pass, people who treat it like a memorization exercise don't.

So our Academy track is built around doing, not just watching. You'll work through each domain, then immediately apply it through scenario-based challenges that mirror the exam's performance-based questions. And because BlackHack Academy is the front door to our whole ecosystem, finishing Security+ isn't the end — it's your on-ramp into our community programs and, for top performers, our Blue Hat Security consulting pool.

Get started

Security+ courses are intentionally priced to be accessible — this is the tip of the spear, not a gatekept bootcamp. Create your account and start the Security+ track today.

The field needs more ethical hackers who genuinely understand what they're defending. Let's build that — starting now.