Cloud 101CircleEventsBlog
Join AT&T's experts & CSA's Troy Leach on April 4 to boost your cyber resilience in 2024!

CSA Official Press Release

Published 09/10/2019

CSA’s Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge Exam Is Now Covered Under the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs GI Bill®

CSA’s Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge Exam Is Now Covered Under the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs GI Bill®

Eligible U.S. Veterans can now take advantage of opportunity to deepen their cloud security knowledge as part of GI Bill’s educational benefits

SEATTLE – September 10, 2019 – The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining and raising awareness of best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, today announced that the cost of the Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK) exam is now covered under the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs GI Bill®, meaning that eligible U.S. Veterans and qualifying family members will be reimbursed for the full cost of the exam.

Called the "mother of all cloud computing certifications" by CIO.com, the vendor-neutral CCSK tests for a broad foundation of cloud security knowledge, covering such topics as architecture, governance, compliance, operations, encryption, and virtualization and serves as the foundation for those seeking to demonstrate a deep-seated knowledge and competency with cyber, information, software and cloud computing infrastructure security.

“As enterprises and consumers move greater amounts of sensitive information to the cloud, employers are struggling to find information security leaders who have the necessary breadth and depth of knowledge to establish cloud security programs that protect sensitive information,” said Jim Reavis, Co-founder and CEO, Cloud Security Alliance. “We are extremely proud to be able to offer U.S. Veterans the opportunity to further, or even launch, their careers in an exciting and growing field with high demand for qualified professionals.”

“There is a tremendous skills gap when it comes to cloud-savvy, information security professionals,” said Ryan Bergsma, Training Program Director, CSA. “The CCSK certificate is widely recognized as the standard of cloud security expertise and is the natural next step for those who are looking to learn how to best secure data in the cloud.”

Demonstrated expert knowledge of cloud computing and associated security issues is very valuable both to the expert and to our nation. The U.S. military and the organizations who serve its mission have a strong need for these skills. Increasingly, cloud computing and cloud security are vital to national security. Individuals who have this expertise can expect to have a direct impact to our national security and to have additional career opportunities.

Since it was launched in 2010, thousands of IT and security professionals have upgraded their skillsets and enhanced their careers by obtaining the CCSK.Among the benefits of earning the CCSK are:

  • Proven competency in key cloud security issues through an organization that specializes in cloud research
  • Increased employment opportunities by filling the skills-gap for cloud-certified professionals
  • Demonstrated technical knowledge, skills, and abilities to effectively use controls tailored to the cloud
  • Ability to establish a baseline of security best practices when dealing with a broad array of responsibilities, from cloud governance to configuring technical security controls
  • Serves as a complement to other credentials

The CCSK exam body of knowledge is the CSA Security Guidance v4, the CSA Cloud Control Matrix and the ENISA Cloud Computing Risk Assessment report. Those interested in taking the exam can take advantage of a variety of training programs available through CSA, from free self-study prep courses and self-paced online courses to in-person training sessions and instructor-led online classes.

Since 1944, the GI Bill has helped qualifying Veterans and their family members pay for all or some of the costs associated with college, graduate school and professional training. Now eligible Veterans can receive reimbursement of up to $2,000 per test (but not more than the VA-approved cost of the test) and receive benefits if they need to retake it. Those seeking reimbursement will need to provide the name of the exam (CCSK), the date the test was taken, the exam fee ($395), a copy of their test results (visit https://ccsk.cloudsecurityalliance.org/en/attempts and click on the given test result), and CSA’s address (1151 Ellis Street, Bellingham, WA 98225), along with personal information listed here.

GI Bill® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). More information about education benefits offered by VA is available at the official U.S. government Web site at https://www.benefits.va.gov/gibill.

Share this content on your favorite social network today!

About Cloud Security Alliance

The Cloud Security Alliance is a not-for-profit organization with a mission to promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance within Cloud Computing, and to provide education on the uses of Cloud Computing to help secure all other forms of computing. The Cloud Security Alliance is led by a broad coalition of industry practitioners, corporations, associations and other key stakeholders. For further information, follow us on Twitter @cloudsa.

For press inquiries, email Zenobia Godschalk of ZAG Communications or reach her by phone at 650.269.8315.