Cloud Security Alliance > Education > Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge
Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK) v.4

Why Obtain the CCSK?

As enterprises and consumers move greater amounts of sensitive information to the cloud, employers struggle to find information security leaders who have the necessary breadth and depth of knowledge to establish cloud security programs protecting sensitive information.

The CCSK lets the marketplace know you are ready for the challenge with the first credential dedicated to cloud security, offered by the world’s thought leader in cloud security.

Since Cloud Security Alliance first released the Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK) in 2010, thousands of IT and security professionals have taken the opportunity to upgrade their skillsets and enhance their careers by obtaining the CCSK. It was no surprise to us when Certification Magazine listed CCSK at #1 on the Average Salary Survey 2016.

CCSK Training

We highly recommend CCSK training. As with any IT certification, formal training is an excellent way to improve your chance of successfully passing the exam, sharing real-world experiences with your peers and getting cloud systems hands-on to apply the best practices.

CCSK Training Courses

CCSK Training Schedule

The CCSK Helps You:

  • Validate your competence gained through experience in cloud security
  • Demonstrate your technical knowledge, skills, and abilities to effectively develop a holistic cloud security program relative to globally accepted standards
  • Differentiate yourself from other candidates for desirable employment in the fast-growing cloud security market
  • Gain access to valuable career resources, such as tools, networking and ideas exchange with peers

The CCSK Helps Employers:

  • Protect against threats with qualified professionals who have the expertise to competently design, build, and maintain a secure cloud business environment
  • Increase your confidence that candidates are qualified and committed to cloud security
  • Ensure practitioners use a universal language, circumventing ambiguity with industry-accepted cloud security terms and practices
  • Increase organizations’ credibility when working with constituents

The CCSK Helps Cloud Providers and Consulting Organizations:

  • Increase revenues by winning more business using expertise demonstrated with certified staff
  • Increase organizations’ credibility and trust when working with clients and vendors

What the Industry Says

"This is the mother of all cloud computing security certifications. The Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge certification is vendor-neutral, and certifies competency in key cloud security areas.”

~ CIO.com, Top Ten Cloud Computing Certifications

“Having dealt with security since the creation of our Group 60 years ago, at Kudelski Security we are thrilled to leverage CSA’s Cloud Security Knowledge certification to bring our Cyber Security Division’s engineering experts to a common level of understanding of best practices and benefits of cloud computing. When training clients in corporate and public segments on information security standards, we highlight the importance of CSA’s CCSK certification for IT professionals who need to ensure adoption of secure cloud environment in their organizations.”

~ Joel Conus, VP Cyber Security Operations, Kudelski Security

“The CSA, in providing a set of goals through the CCSK, is challenging security practitioners to become the cloud thought-leaders we need today and tomorrow to ensure safe and secure cloud environments. In developing the CCSK, CSA is 'setting the bar' for security professionals and providing business executives a means to gauge the opinions and rhetoric associated with security in the cloud.”

~ Jerry Archer, CSO, Sallie Mae

“With CCSK certification, professionals who have Cloud Computing responsibilities can demonstrate thorough Cloud security knowledge based on the CSA’s catalogue of security best practices.”

~ Patrick Harding, CTO, Ping Identity

"As enterprises move toward cloud computing, they are desperately seeking guidance and education in this new domain. CSA is bridging this gap and the CCSK provides an important first step in establishing baseline knowledge for individuals tasked with building and managing applications to the cloud."

~ Michael Sutton, CISO, Zscaler

Get Ready to take the CCSK Exam

The CCSK is an examination testing for a broad foundation of knowledge about cloud security, with topics ranging from architecture, governance, compliance, operations, encryption, virtualization and much more.

The CCSK examination is a timed, multiple choice examination you take online. The examination consists of 60 multiple choice questions selected randomly from our question pool, and must be completed within 90 minutes.

Download your Preparation Kit

Once you are a CCSK holder you are always a CCSK holder. There are no maintenance fees or obligations. Though it is good to stay current.

Anyone that passes CCSK v.3 in the two-year timeframe 12/1/2016 to 11/30/2018 will get a free attempt at CCSK v4 (so if you are all studied up for v3 you might want to take that first then study up for v4 and take that later).

All tokens are good for any version of the exam.

Please do reach out to [email protected] at any time if you have further questions.

CCSK v3 Preparation Kit CCSK v4 Preparation Kit

Please fill out the following form to download the CCSK Exam Preparation materials.

Access the CCSK Preparation Materials










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CCSK Training

Formal training is an excellent way to improve your chances at successfully passing the exam. We have found that even more important than actually passing the exam is sharing real world experiences with your peers and getting hands on access to cloud systems to apply the best practices. To that end, CSA has developed two courses that address these needs and which we highly recommend:

  • The CCSK Foundation class provides students a comprehensive one day review of cloud security fundamentals, the body of knowledge and prepares them to take the Cloud Security Alliance CCSK certificate exam.
  • The CCSK Plus class builds upon the CCSK Foundation class with expanded material and extensive hands-on activities with a second day of training. Students will learn to apply their knowledge as they perform a series of exercises as they complete a scenario bringing a fictional organization securely into the cloud.

These courses are available worldwide via out training partner network.
For more information, click here.