Preparation for CCSK v4.0— Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge
I recently passed the CSA Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge. It provides a set of comprehensive and vendor neutral cloud computing principles across all the security domains, compiled from ISO/IEC 17789 standard and NIST 800–145 and 500–292 standards. The areas of critical focus are governing in the cloud and operating in the cloud.
CSA highlighted the gaps of security changes, new opportunities, and any challenges to overcome or to adopt with new security changes during the pre-adoption of cloud service provider assessment activity or during the cloud journey for any organization. The CSA CCM and CAIQ speed up the assessment activity and due diligence for both cloud consumer and cloud service provider. I recommended the CCSK to all the cloud professional community.
[1] Is the CCSK is worth for you ?
If you are working in cloud domain and interested to gain cloud security fundamental knowledge or if you wants to grow your career on cloud security specialist then CCSK could be the first step instead of directly jump on CCSP.
As per Cloud Security Alliance,
This exam preparation required the consistent study plan and commitment.
[2] Prerequisites for the CCSK.
The CSA doesn’t mentioned any strict prerequisites for this certification.
As per my opinion, The Candidate should be aware about at least one cloud computing foundational or associate certification and practical Hands On exposure on any one of the top 4 cloud service providers.
OCI — Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
AZURE — Microsoft Azure
GCP — Google Cloud Platform
AWS — Amazon Cloud Services
[3] Exam Structure
The CCSK is an open-book, online exam, completed in 90 minutes with 60 multiple-choice questions selected randomly from the CCSK question pool. The minimum passing score is 80%. There are several ways you can prepare for the exam.
Although it is open-book exam but you may not get enough time to check each and every questions.
Don’t under estimate the exam questions it will validate your real knowledge.
It is not possible to pause or stop the examination and finish it at a later date. Therefore, the participant should be properly prepared to take the test before starting, and while you can choose to take the test any time of the day or night, one should budget for 90 minutes of uninterrupted time once you make the commitment to start the test
[4] CCSK Syllabus
[5] Cloud Security Alliance — Study Materials for CCSK v4.0
The candidate can refer this PDF material for exam preparation.
The CSA Security Guidance v4 contains the very good detailed about each and every security domain and at the end of the domain have important highlight or any best practices of what should be taken care by cloud consumer or cloud service providers.
Do not forget to read the ENISA Recommendations
CSA CCM and CAIQ are the important tools for cloud consumer and cloud service providers.
Study on Your Own
You can also study for the exam yourself using our free prep-kit. The kit includes sample questions, an outline of the domains and topics covered in the exam, as well as all of the documents you will be tested on.
[6] Register in Training Program
I have taken the LVC 3 Days Training. You may check below options in CSA Website.
[7] Self Learning using — CCSK Book
I have ordered the Book written by Graham Thompson
CCSK Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge All-in-One Exam Guide
The book is very good not only for the exam but it may really help during day to day cloud security and cloud audit assessment activities.
I liked the summary notes provided at end of each and every chapters.
The Graham Thompson’s CCSK book claim that you save 10% on your CCSK exam token! The reality is that the provided the Coupon code inside book was expired and amazon seller not giving any response on that.
[8] Purchase the Exam Voucher and Registration for the Exam
Purchasing the CCSK exam costs is $395 and provides you with two test attempts, which you will have 2 years to use.
Signup at exam platform and provide your information.
There is no any option available in portal to do the exam schedule. The candidate can take the exam directly over portal so be caution don’t click on the take exam button until you fully prepared for the exam.
[9] Practice Questions and Domain Summary notes.
Graham Thompson’s CCSK books contains the average 10 questions at end of each domain chapters.
The book claim that it is come with 200 sample questions available at online platform provided by book. Yes, This is true!
This questions are not real exam questions this is just for practice the knowledge what you learn through out the security domains.
[10] Exam Day
Make sure that you have at-least two times go through the Security-Guidance v4 and ENISA and CCMv3.0.1.
I encourage to do more practice on sample questions because this may help you to get idea what type of questions may comes in exam.
You can keep this document open during the Exam but believe that you don’t have much time to check for each and every questions from document.
Carefully read all the instructions provided on first screen after you click on take Exam.
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Disclaimer: The views expressed on this document are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle.
