kSOCA is a foundation-level certification that validates core Security Operations Center skills. Candidates must demonstrate the ability to investigate security events, analyze logs, identify suspicious activity, correlate evidence, and communicate findings clearly in a practical blue-team environment.
kSOCA is a practical, foundation-level exam that evaluates how effectively a candidate can investigate a security incident in a SOC-style environment. Candidates are assessed on their ability to work with log data, follow investigative leads, identify suspicious activity, and reconstruct key events from the available evidence.
kSOCA is ideal for beginners who want to build real, hands-on SOC investigation and log analysis skills in a structured and practical way. It is well suited for security students, aspiring SOC analysts, blue team beginners, IT or support professionals, incident response learners, and anyone exploring cybersecurity operations as a career path.
The exam is conducted in a controlled environment and provides a scenario-based SOC investigation lab. Candidates must perform an actual investigation using the provided evidence and log data, identify key details from the incident, and submit the correct flags as proof for each task.
All tasks are practical and require candidates to search, filter, correlate, and analyze security events to uncover important information such as suspicious activity, attacker behavior, indicators, and timeline details.
The assessment is 1.5 hours in duration, with an additional 30 minutes allocated for environment preparation, including instance creation and lab setup. The total allotted time for the exam is 2 hours.
This is a practical, hands-on exam, so candidates should have some basic experience with SOC investigation and log analysis before attempting it. You should understand how to review security events, work with timestamps, identify suspicious activity, and follow evidence across logs.
A minimum level of investigation experience is needed, including familiarity with basic phishing indicators, authentication activity, IP addresses, URLs, user agents, and simple Splunk searches.
All exams are conducted under strict integrity standards. Candidates must complete the exam independently—receiving or providing help, using unauthorized resources, or sharing questions or answers in any form (during or after the exam) is strictly prohibited and may result in disqualification and revocation of certification.
This exam includes 1 free retake as part of the voucher policy. After all included retakes are used, any additional attempt will require the purchase of a new voucher.
This certification includes lifetime online verification and does not expire. Each certificate clearly indicates the exam version and the exam passing date to provide transparent context on when the assessment was completed.
As industry practices and tools evolve, we strongly recommend taking the latest exam version periodically to demonstrate that your knowledge and skills remain current.
No. Certification is earned based on individual performance. We do not guarantee exam results or successful outcomes.
All exam purchases are final. Once purchased, no refunds will be issued under any circumstances.
You can retake the exam immediately after a failed attempt or at any time before your exam voucher expires. There is no mandatory waiting period between attempts, as long as your voucher remains valid.
No. Sharing exam questions, answers, or any part of the assessment is strictly prohibited and may result in disqualification or revocation of certification.